What is massage?

Massage is the treatment and practice of manipulation of the soft body tissues with physical, functional, i.e. mechanical, medical/therapeutic, and in some cases psychological purposes and goals.
The word comes from the French massage "friction of kneading," possibly from Arabic massa "to touch, feel, handle" or from Latin massa "mass, dough".
(In distinction the ancient Greek word for massage itself was anatripsis
, and the Latin was frictio.)

Massage involves acting on and manipulating the patient's body with pressure (structured, unstructured, stationary, and/or moving), tension, motion, or vibration done manually or with mechanical aids. Target tissues may include muscles, tendons, ligaments, skin, joints, or other connective tissue, as well as lymphatic vessels, and/or organs of the gastrointestinal system. Massage can be applied with the hands, fingers, elbows, forearm, and feet. There are over eighty different massage modalities.
The most cited reasons for introducing massage have been patient demand and perceived clinical effectiveness.

In professional settings massage involves the client being treated while lying on a massage table, sitting upright in a massage chair, or lying on a pad on the floor. The massage subject may be fully, partly or unclothed and the body covered with towels or sheets.

source from: wikipedia