Etymology 2

mash, mash- from mǣsc-, masc- from from . Akin to German Meisch, Maisch, meischen, maischen, ("to mash, to wash"), mäsk, and to . See mix

Noun

1. A mass of mixed ingredients reduced to a soft pulpy state by beating or pressure; a mass of anything in a soft pulpy state.
2. In brewing, ground or bruised malt, or meal of rye, wheat, corn, or other grain (or a mixture of malt and meal) steeped and stirred in hot water for making the wort.
3. Mashed potatoes.
4. A mixture of meal or bran and water fed to animals.
5. : A mess; trouble — Francis Beaumont & John Fletcher

Verb

1. To convert into a mash; to reduce to a soft pulpy state by beating or pressure; to bruise; to crush; as, to mash apples in a mill, or potatoes with a pestle. Specifically (Brewing), to convert, as malt, or malt and meal, into the mash which makes wort.
2. To press down hard (on).

   to mash on a bicycle pedal

3. to press.

Etymology 3

Either by analogy with , or more likely from , . Originally used in theater, and recorded in US in 1870s. Either originally used as mash, or a backformation from , from . Leland writes of the etymology:

It was introduced by the well-known gypsy family of actors, C., among whom Romany was habitually spoken. The word “masher” or “mash” means in that tongue to allure, delude, or entice. It was doubtless much aided in its popularity by its quasi-identity with the English word. But there can be no doubt as to the gypsy origin of “mash” as used on the stage. I am indebted for this information to the late well-known impresario [Albert Marshall] Palmer of New York, and I made a note of it years before the term had become at all popular.

Noun

1. an infatuation, a crush, a fancy
2. a dandy, a masher
3. the object of one’s affections