What is "-mastix"

-mastix is a suffix derived from Ancient Greek, and used quite frequently in English literature of the 17th century, to denote a strong opponent or hater of whatever the suffix was attached to. It became common after Thomas Dekker's play Satiromastix of 1602. The word μάστιξ (mastix) translates as whip or scourge.

A well-known example is the 1632 book Histriomastix by William Prynne, against theatre, which caused legal proceedings against him because of perceived allusion to Queen Henrietta Maria. The title itself was not novel, and occurred in a late Elizabethan play Histrio-Mastix, subtitle The Player Whipped, by John Marston. Scholars have noted that the -mastix suffix is associated with Marston.

In a paper war of 1604–7 between Andrew Willet and Richard Parkes, part of the Descensus controversy, the formation of terms with -mastix as suffix was discussed, Willet having initially addressed Parkes in a pamphlet Limbo-mastix. Parkes affected to be unimpressed with the play on limbo, and Willet coined Loidoromastix for him, a "scourge for a railer". By 1623 and the Latin play Fucus Histriomastix the formation of hybrid words, Dog Latin and literary nonsense with the suffix seems to have been established. The term had apparently become generic for satire by the 1660s, when schoolboys wrote "a mastix" against the schoolmaster Thomas Grantham.