master’s degree

master’s degree, academic degree intermediate between the bachelor’s degree and the doctor’s degree. The terms master and doctor were used interchangeably during the Middle Ages, but in Germany the doctorate came to be considered superior to the master’s and this system subsequently spread to the rest of the world.

The master of arts (magister artium or M.A.; sometimes rendered artium magister or A.M.) is in theory the holder of a license to teach. The term master was originally equivalent to doctor; in the faculty of arts the approved scholar was styled master, while in faculties of divinity, medicine, and law the scholar was termed doctor. Perhaps because of the need to become a master of arts before proceeding to other studies, the doctorate came to be esteemed as a higher title. In modern usage in most universities, except in Scotland, the gradation in the faculty of arts proceeds B.A., M.A., Ph.D., D.Litt.

The automatic conferring of an M.A. degree upon the holder of B.A. seven years, or nearly seven years, after matriculation is practiced at Oxford and Cambridge, but elsewhere in England and in the U.S. the M.A. must be achieved through examination or by the completion of a piece of research. In modern times intermediate degrees such as that of master have been abandoned in the universities of many countries.