MC

The word “MC” means to host an event as master or mistress of ceremonies, introducing acts and keeping things moving. In plain terms, to act as the host of a show, or to rap/perform as an MC.

Here is “MC” used in a sentence: “She agreed to MC the charity auction on Friday night.”

“MC” is a verb.

“MC” is a fairly common word in modern English.

“MC” has 2 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: to host an event as master or mistress of ceremonies, introducing acts and keeping things moving.

MC stands for master of ceremonies, or mistress of ceremonies, the person who hosts an event by introducing acts and keeping things moving. In hip-hop, the same abbreviation came to describe a rapper, especially one who hypes up a crowd or leads a rap group.

The MC works the microphone: hosting the event, introducing acts, hyping the crowd, or rapping. The DJ selects and plays the music. At many events and in hip-hop performance the two work as a pair, with the DJ providing the sound and the MC providing the voice.

Both are correct and refer to the same thing; emcee is simply the phonetic spelling of the abbreviation MC. Emcee is often preferred in running prose because it takes verb endings more naturally, giving emceed and emceeing rather than the more awkward MC'd.

When MC is used as a verb, meaning to host an event or perform as a rapper, the past tense is usually written MC'd, and sometimes MCed. Many writers sidestep the awkward spelling by using the form emceed instead, which is fully standard.