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man
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1
[man] 
noun, plural men, verb, manned, man⋅ning, interjection –noun
| 1. | an adult male person, as distinguished from a boy or a woman. |
| 2. | a member of the species Homo sapiens or all the members of this species collectively, without regard to sex: prehistoric man. |
| 3. | the human individual as representing the species, without reference to sex; the human race; humankind: Man hopes for peace, but prepares for war. |
| 4. | a human being; person: to give a man a chance; When the audience smelled the smoke, it was every man for himself. |
| 5. | a husband. |
| 6. | a male lover or sweetheart. |
| 7. | a male follower or subordinate: the king's men. He's the boss's number one man. |
| 8. | a male employee or representative, esp. of a company or agency: a Secret Service man; a man from the phone company. |
| 9. | a male having qualities considered typical of men or appropriately masculine: Be a man. The army will make a man of you. |
| 10. | a male servant. |
| 11. | a valet. |
| 12. | enlisted man. |
| 13. | an enthusiast or devotee: I like jazz, but I'm essentially a classics man. |
| 14. | Slang. male friend; ally: You're my main man. |
| 15. | a term of familiar address to a man; fellow: Now, now, my good man, please calm down. |
| 16. | Slang. a term of familiar address to a man or a woman: Hey, man, take it easy. |
| 17. | one of the pieces used in playing certain games, as chess or checkers. |
| 18. | History/Historical. a liegeman; vassal. |
| 19. | Obsolete. manly character or courage. |
| 20. | the man, Slang.
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–verb (used with object)
| 21. | to furnish with men, as for service or defense. |
| 22. | to take one's place for service, as at a gun or post: to man the ramparts. |
| 23. | to strengthen, fortify, or brace; steel: to man oneself for the dangers ahead. |
| 24. | Falconry. to accustom (a hawk) to the presence of men. |
–interjection
—Idioms| 25. | Slang. an expression of surprise, enthusiasm, dismay, or other strong feeling: Man, what a ball game! |
| 26. | as one man, in complete agreement or accord; unanimously: They arose as one man to protest the verdict. |
| 27. | be one's own man,
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| 28. | man and boy, ever since childhood: He's been working that farm, man and boy, for more than 50 years. |
| 29. | man's man, a man who exemplifies masculine qualities. |
| 30. | to a man, with no exception; everyone; all: To a man, the members of the team did their best. |
Origin:
bef. 900; (n.) ME; OE man(n); c. G Mann, D man, ON mathr, Goth manna; (v.) ME mannen, OE mannian to garrison
bef. 900; (n.) ME; OE man(n); c. G Mann, D man, ON mathr, Goth manna; (v.) ME mannen, OE mannian to garrison
Related forms:
manless, adjective
man⋅less⋅ly, adverb
man⋅less⋅ness, noun
manness, noun
Synonyms:
Man, male, gentleman are nouns referring to adult human beings who are biologically male; that is, physiologically equipped to initiate conception but not to bear children. Man is the most general and most commonly used of the three; it can be neutral, lacking either favorable or unfavorable implication: a wealthy man; a man of strong character, of unbridled appetites. It can also signify possession of the most typical or desirable masculine qualities: to take one's punishment like a man. Male emphasizes the physical or sexual characteristics of a man; it may also refer to an animal or plant: a male in his prime; two males and three females in the pack; a male of the genus Ilex. In scientific and statistical use, male is the neutral contrastive term to female: 104 females to every 100 males; Among birds, the male is often more colorful than the female. Gentleman, once used only of men of high social rank, now also specifies a man of courtesy and consideration: a real gentleman; to behave like a gentleman. Gentleman is also used as a polite term of reference (This gentleman is waiting for a table) or, only in the plural, of address (Are we ready to begin, gentlemen?). See also manly, male.
Man, male, gentleman are nouns referring to adult human beings who are biologically male; that is, physiologically equipped to initiate conception but not to bear children. Man is the most general and most commonly used of the three; it can be neutral, lacking either favorable or unfavorable implication: a wealthy man; a man of strong character, of unbridled appetites. It can also signify possession of the most typical or desirable masculine qualities: to take one's punishment like a man. Male emphasizes the physical or sexual characteristics of a man; it may also refer to an animal or plant: a male in his prime; two males and three females in the pack; a male of the genus Ilex. In scientific and statistical use, male is the neutral contrastive term to female: 104 females to every 100 males; Among birds, the male is often more colorful than the female. Gentleman, once used only of men of high social rank, now also specifies a man of courtesy and consideration: a real gentleman; to behave like a gentleman. Gentleman is also used as a polite term of reference (This gentleman is waiting for a table) or, only in the plural, of address (Are we ready to begin, gentlemen?). See also manly, male.
Usage note:
The use of man1 to mean “human being,” both alone and in compounds such as mankind, has met with objection in recent years, and the use is declining. The objection is based on the idea that man is most commonly used as an exclusive, sex-marked noun meaning “male human being.” Critics of the use of man as a generic maintain that it is sometimes ambiguous when the wider sense is intended (Man has built magnificent civilizations in the desert), but more often flatly discriminatory in that it slights or ignores the membership of women in the human race: The man in the street wants peace, not war.
Although some editors and writers reject or disregard these objections to man as a generic, many now choose instead to use such terms as human being(s), human race, humankind, people, or, when called for by style or context, women and men or men and women. See also -man, -person, -woman.
The use of man1 to mean “human being,” both alone and in compounds such as mankind, has met with objection in recent years, and the use is declining. The objection is based on the idea that man is most commonly used as an exclusive, sex-marked noun meaning “male human being.” Critics of the use of man as a generic maintain that it is sometimes ambiguous when the wider sense is intended (Man has built magnificent civilizations in the desert), but more often flatly discriminatory in that it slights or ignores the membership of women in the human race: The man in the street wants peace, not war.
Although some editors and writers reject or disregard these objections to man as a generic, many now choose instead to use such terms as human being(s), human race, humankind, people, or, when called for by style or context, women and men or men and women. See also -man, -person, -woman.
Man
[man] –noun
| Isle of, an island of the British Isles, in the Irish Sea. 58,773; 227 sq. mi. (588 sq. km). Capital: Douglas. |
-man
| a combining form of man: layman; postman. |
Usage note:
The use of -man as the last element in compounds referring to a person of either sex who performs some function (anchorman; chairman; spokesman) has declined a great deal in recent years. Only if the reference is to a specific male person are such compounds still widely used: Roy Johnston, Channel 83 news anchorman. Sometimes the sex-neutral -person is substituted for -man when the sex of the individual involved is unknown or irrelevant: anchorperson; chairperson; spokesperson. Often when a specific woman is involved, the suffix -woman is used: Doris Powell, Channel 83 news anchorwoman. And sometimes, when possible, a form with no suffix at all is used: Roy Johnston, Channel 83 news anchor.
All terms historically ending in -man that designate specific occupations (foreman; mailman; policeman; repairman; etc.) were dropped in favor of sex-neutral terms in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), published by the U.S. Dept. of Labor in 1977. DOT terms for the occupations listed above are supervisor, mail or letter carrier, police officer (or just officer), repairer (as in radio repairer). Many industries and business firms have adopted similar sex-neutral occupational titles.
One -man compound, freshman, is still the term generally used in high schools and colleges and in Congress, and it is applied to both sexes. As a modifier, the singular form freshman is used with both singular and plural nouns: a freshman athlete; freshman legislators. See also chairperson, man, -person, -woman.
The use of -man as the last element in compounds referring to a person of either sex who performs some function (anchorman; chairman; spokesman) has declined a great deal in recent years. Only if the reference is to a specific male person are such compounds still widely used: Roy Johnston, Channel 83 news anchorman. Sometimes the sex-neutral -person is substituted for -man when the sex of the individual involved is unknown or irrelevant: anchorperson; chairperson; spokesperson. Often when a specific woman is involved, the suffix -woman is used: Doris Powell, Channel 83 news anchorwoman. And sometimes, when possible, a form with no suffix at all is used: Roy Johnston, Channel 83 news anchor.
All terms historically ending in -man that designate specific occupations (foreman; mailman; policeman; repairman; etc.) were dropped in favor of sex-neutral terms in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), published by the U.S. Dept. of Labor in 1977. DOT terms for the occupations listed above are supervisor, mail or letter carrier, police officer (or just officer), repairer (as in radio repairer). Many industries and business firms have adopted similar sex-neutral occupational titles.
One -man compound, freshman, is still the term generally used in high schools and colleges and in Congress, and it is applied to both sexes. As a modifier, the singular form freshman is used with both singular and plural nouns: a freshman athlete; freshman legislators. See also chairperson, man, -person, -woman.
man.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Link To man
| man (mān) n. pl. men (měn)
[Middle English, from Old English mann; see man-1 in Indo-European roots.] Usage Note: Traditionally, many writers have used man and words derived from it to designate any or all of the human race regardless of sex. In fact, this is the oldest use of the word. In Old English the principal sense of man was "a human," and the words wer and wyf (or wæpman and wifman) were used to refer to "a male human" and "a female human" respectively. But in Middle English man displaced wer as the term for "a male human," while wyfman (which evolved into present-day woman) was retained for "a female human." Despite this change, man continued to carry its original sense of "a human" as well, resulting in an asymmetrical arrangement that many criticize as sexist. · Nonetheless, a majority of the Usage Panel still accepts the generic use of man, although the women members have significantly less enthusiasm for this usage than the men do. For example, the sentence If early man suffered from a lack of information, modern man is tyrannized by an excess of it is acceptable to 81 percent of the Panel—but a breakdown by sex shows that only 58 percent of the women Panelists accept it, while 92 percent of the men do. A majority of the Panel also accepts compound words derived from generic man. The sentence The Great Wall is the only man-made structure visible from space is acceptable to 86 percent (76 percent of the women and 91 percent of the men). The sentence "The history of language is the history of mankind" (James Bradstreet Greenough and George Lyman Kittredge) is acceptable to 76 percent (63 percent of the women and 82 percent of the men). The Panel finds such compounds less acceptable when applied to women, however; only 66 percent of the Panel members (57 percent of the women and 71 percent of the men) accept the use of the word manpower in the sentence Countries that do not permit women to participate in the work force are at a disadvantage in competing with those that do avail themselves of that extra source of manpower. · Similar controversy surrounds the generic use of -man compounds to indicate occupational and social roles. Thus the use of chairman in the sentence The chairman will be appointed by the Faculty Senate is acceptable to 67 percent of the Panel (52 percent of the women and 76 percent of the men). Approval rates fall much further, however, for -man compounds applied to women. Only 48 percent (43 percent of the women and 50 percent of the men) accept the use of the word in Emily Owen, chairman of the Mayor's Task Force, issued a statement assuring residents that their views would be solicited. A majority of the Panelists also rejects the verb man when used to refer to an activity performed by women. Fifty-six percent of the Panel (61 percent of the women and 54 percent of the men) disapprove of the sentence Members of the League of Women Voters will be manning the registration desk. See Usage Notes at -ess, men, people, person. |
| Man, Isle of An island of Great Britain in the Irish Sea off the northwest coast of England. Occupied in the 9th century by Vikings, it passed from Norway to Scotland in 1266 and to the earls of Salisbury and of Derby in the 14th century. Parliament purchased the island in 1765, and it remains an autonomous possession of the British crown. |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Man
Man\, n.; pl. Men. [AS. mann, man, monn, mon; akin to OS., D., & OHG. man, G. mann, Icel. ma[eth]r, for mannr, Dan. Mand, Sw. man, Goth. manna, Skr. manu, manus, and perh. to Skr. man to think, and E. mind. [root]104. Cf. Minx a pert girl.]1. A human being; -- opposed tobeast. These men went about wide, and man found they none, But fair country, and wild beast many [a] one. --R. of Glouc. The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me. --Shak. 2. Especially: An adult male person; a grown-up male person, as distinguished from a woman or a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. --I Cor. xiii. 11. Ceneus, a woman once, and once a man. --Dryden. 3. The human race; mankind. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion. --Gen. i. 26. The proper study of mankind is man. --Pope. 4. The male portion of the human race. Woman has, in general, much stronger propensity than man to the discharge of parental duties. --Cowper. 5. One possessing in a high degree the distinctive qualities of manhood; one having manly excellence of any kind. --Shak. This was the noblest Roman of them all . . . the elements So mixed in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world "This was a man!" --Shak. 6. An adult male servant; also, a vassal; a subject. Like master, like man. --Old Proverb. The vassal, or tenant, kneeling, ungirt, uncovered, and holding up his hands between those of his lord, professed that he did become his man from that day forth, of life, limb, and earthly honor. --Blackstone. 7. A term of familiar address often implying on the part of the speaker some degree of authority, impatience, or haste; as, Come, man, we 've no time to lose! 8. A married man; a husband; -- correlative to wife. I pronounce that they are man and wife. --Book of Com. Prayer. every wife ought to answer for her man. --Addison. 9. One, or any one, indefinitely; -- a modified survival of the Saxon use of man, or mon, as an indefinite pronoun. A man can not make him laugh. --Shak. A man would expect to find some antiquities; but all they have to show of this nature is an old rostrum of a Roman ship. --Addison. 10. One of the piece with which certain games, as chess or draughts, are played. Note: Man is often used as a prefix in composition, or as a separate adjective, its sense being usually self-explaining; as, man child, man eater or maneater, man-eating, man hater or manhater, man-hating, manhunter, man-hunting, mankiller, man-killing, man midwife, man pleaser, man servant, man-shaped, manslayer, manstealer, man-stealing, manthief, man worship, etc. Man is also used as a suffix to denote a person of the male sex having a business which pertains to the thing spoken of in the qualifying part of the compound; ashman, butterman, laundryman, lumberman, milkman, fireman, showman, waterman, woodman. Where the combination is not familiar, or where some specific meaning of the compound is to be avoided, man is used as a separate substantive in the foregoing sense; as, apple man, cloth man, coal man, hardware man, wood man (as distinguished from woodman). Man ape (Zo["o]l.), a anthropoid ape, as the gorilla. Man at arms, a designation of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for a soldier fully armed. Man engine, a mechanical lift for raising or lowering people through considerable distances; specifically (Mining), a contrivance by which miners ascend or descend in a shaft. It consists of a series of landings in the shaft and an equal number of shelves on a vertical rod which has an up and down motion equal to the distance between the successive landings. A man steps from a landing to a shelf and is lifted or lowered to the next landing, upon which he them steps, and so on, traveling by successive stages. Man Friday, a person wholly subservient to the will of another, like Robinson Crusoe's servant Friday. Man of straw, a puppet; one who is controlled by others; also, one who is not responsible pecuniarily. Man-of-the earth (Bot.), a twining plant (Ipom[oe]a pandurata) with leaves and flowers much like those of the morning-glory, but having an immense tuberous farinaceous root. Man of war. (a) A warrior; a soldier. --Shak. (b) (Naut.) See in the Vocabulary. To be one's own man, to have command of one's self; not to be subject to another.Man
Man\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Manned; p. pr. & vb. n. Manning.]1. To supply with men; to furnish with a sufficient force or complement of men, as for management, service, defense, or the like; to guard; as, to man a ship, boat, or fort. See how the surly Warwick mans the wall ! --Shak. They man their boats, and all their young men arm. --Waller. 2. To furnish with strength for action; to prepare for efficiency; to fortify. "Theodosius having manned his soul with proper reflections." --Addison. 3. To tame, as a hawk. [R.] --Shak. 4. To furnish with a servants. [Obs.] --Shak. 5. To wait on as a manservant. [Obs.] --Shak. Note: In "Othello," V. ii. 270, the meaning is uncertain, being, perhaps: To point, to aim, or to manage. To man a yard (Naut.), to send men upon a yard, as for furling or reefing a sail. To man the yards (Naut.), to station men on the yards as a salute or mark of respect.Man
Man\, n. Man of sin (Script.), one who is the embodiment of evil, whose coming is represented (--2 Thess. ii. 3) as preceding the second coming of Christ. [A Hebraistic expression] Man-stopping bullet (Mil.), a bullet which will produce a sufficient shock to stop a soldier advancing in a charge; specif., a small-caliber bullet so modified as to expand when striking the human body. Such bullets are chiefly used in wars with savage tribes. Manbird \Man"bird`\, n. An aviator. [Colloq.]
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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man (n.)
O.E. man, mann "human being, person," from P.Gmc. *manwaz (cf. O.S., O.H.G. man, Ger. Mann, O.N. maðr, Goth. manna "man"), from PIE base *man- (cf. Skt. manuh, Avestan manu-, O.C.S. mozi, Rus. muzh "man, male"). Sometimes connected to root *men- "to think" (see mind), which would make the ground sense of man "one who has intelligence," but not all linguists accept this. Plural men (Ger. Männer) shows effects of i-mutation. Sense of "adult male" is late (c.1000); O.E. used wer and wif to distinguish the sexes, but wer began to disappear late 13c. and was replaced by man. Universal sense of the word remains in mankind (from O.E. mancynn, from cynn "kin") and in manslaughter (q.v.). Similarly, L. had homo "human being" and vir "adult male human being," but they merged in V.L., with homo extended to both senses. A like evolution took place in Slavic languages, and in some of them the word has narrowed to mean "husband." PIE had two stems: *uiHro "freeman" (cf. Skt. vira-, Lith. vyras, L. vir, O.Ir. fer, Goth. wair) and *hner "man," a title more of honor than *uiHro (cf. Skt. nar-, Armenian ayr, Welsh ner, Gk. aner). The chess pieces so called from c.1400. As an interjection of surprise or emphasis, first recorded c.1400, but especially popular from early 20c. Man-about-town is from 1734; the Man "the boss" is from 1918. Men's Liberation first attested 1970.
"At the kinges court, my brother, Ech man for himself." [Chaucer, "Knight's Tale," c.1386]
man (v.)
c.1122, "to furnish (a fort, ship, etc.) with a company of men," from man (n.). Meaning "to take up a designated position on a ship" is first recorded 1697.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Main Entry: man
Pronunciation: 'man
Function: noun
Inflected Form: plural men /'men/
: a bipedal primate mammal of the genusHomo (H. sapiens) that is anatomically related to larger more advanced apes comprising the family Pongidae but is distinguished by greater development of the brain with resulting capacityfor articulate speech and abstract reasoning, by marked erectness of body carriage with corresponding alteration of muscular balance and loss of prehensile powers of the foot, and by shortening of thearm with accompanying increase in thumb size and ability to place the thumb next to each of the fingers, that is usually considered to occur in a variable number of freely interbreeding races, and thatis the sole recent representative of the natural family Hominidae; broadly : any living or extinct member of the family Hominidae
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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man
Unix manual page
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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Man
(1.) Heb. 'Adam, used as the proper name of the first man. The name is derived from a word meaning "to be red," and thus the first man was called Adam because he was formed from the red earth. It is also the generic name of the human race (Gen. 1:26, 27; 5:2; 8:21; Deut. 8:3). Its equivalents are the Latin homo and the Greek anthropos (Matt. 5:13, 16). It denotes also man in opposition to woman (Gen. 3:12; Matt. 19:10). (2.) Heb. 'ish, like the Latin vir and Greek aner, denotes properly a man in opposition to a woman (1 Sam. 17:33; Matt. 14:21); a husband (Gen. 3:16; Hos. 2:16); man with reference to excellent mental qualities. (3.) Heb. 'enosh, man as mortal, transient, perishable (2 Chr. 14:11; Isa. 8:1; Job 15:14; Ps. 8:4; 9:19, 20; 103:15). It is applied to women (Josh. 8:25). (4.) Heb. geber, man with reference to his strength, as distinguished from women (Deut. 22:5) and from children (Ex. 12:37); a husband (Prov. 6:34). (5.) Heb. methim, men as mortal (Isa. 41:14), and as opposed to women and children (Deut. 3:6; Job 11:3; Isa. 3:25). Man was created by the immediate hand of God, and is generically different from all other creatures (Gen. 1:26, 27; 2:7). His complex nature is composed of two elements, two distinct substances, viz., body and soul (Gen. 2:7; Eccl. 12:7; 2 Cor. 5:1-8). The words translated "spirit" and "soul," in 1 Thess. 5:23, Heb. 4:12, are habitually used interchangeably (Matt. 10:28; 16:26; 1 Pet. 1:22). The "spirit" (Gr. pneuma) is the soul as rational; the "soul" (Gr. psuche) is the same, considered as the animating and vital principle of the body. Man was created in the likeness of God as to the perfection of his nature, in knowledge (Col. 3:10), righteousness, and holiness (Eph. 4:24), and as having dominion over all the inferior creatures (Gen. 1:28). He had in his original state God's law written on his heart, and had power to obey it, and yet was capable of disobeying, being left to the freedom of his own will. He was created with holy dispositions, prompting him to holy actions; but he was fallible, and did fall from his integrity (3:1-6). (See FALL.)
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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man
In addition to the idioms beginning with man, also see as one (man); company man; dead soldier (man); dirty joke (old man); every man for himself; every man has his price; girl (man) Friday; hatchet man; hired hand (man); ladies' man; low man on the totem pole; marked man; new person (man); no man is an island; odd man out; (man) of few words; one man's meat is another man's poison; own man; right-hand man; see a man about a dog; to a man. Also see under men.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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MAN
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The American Heritage® Abbreviations Dictionary, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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