missa means a mass, in the sense of a composition setting several sung parts of the liturgical service (most often chosen from the ordinary parts Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Agnus Dei and/or Sanctus) to music, notably when the text in Latin is used (as long universally prescribed by Rome). Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 86 out of 100.
Why “missa” is a great word
MISSA — [Noun] A unified musical composition setting the fixed, sung texts of the ordinary of the Latin Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei). From Ecclesiastical Latin missa ("mass, dismissal"), from the concluding phrase of the service, "Ite, missa est" ("Go, it is the dismissal"). Unlike a "Requiem" (which is specifically a Mass for the dead) or a "motet" (a shorter, freestanding sacred piece on a variable text), a missa is the grand architectural form of sacred music, built from the liturgy's immutable core. It is the soaring counterpoint of a Renaissance choir in a vaulted cathedral, the weighty, deliberate progress from plea to praise to creed, and the silent breath taken in a hushed chapel before the Sanctus begins—a monumental structure of sound, paradoxically born from a phrase of release.
noun
- a mass, in the sense of a composition setting several sung parts of the liturgical service (most often chosen from the ordinary parts Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Agnus Dei and/or Sanctus) to music, notably when the text in Latin is used (as long universally prescribed by Rome)