the.com/masa

means The dough made from corn kernels that have been cooked and steeped in an alkaline solution (traditionally lime), then ground fine — the base for tortillas, tamales, and pupusas.

from From Spanish 'masa,' meaning simply 'dough' or 'paste,' itself from Latin 'massa' (a lump or mass — the same root that gives English 'mass'). The word itself is plain; the magic is in the process it describes — nixtamalization, the ancient Mesoamerican technique of soaking corn in an alkali bath (lime or ash) that unlocks its nutrients and transforms hard kernels into pliable dough. The Spanish word stuck to a Mesoamerican invention far older than the language that named it.