man
Meanings
- An adult male human.
- All human males collectively: mankind.
- An adult male who belongs to a particular group: an employee, a representative, etc.
- An adult male who has, to an eminent degree, qualities considered masculine, such as strength, integrity, and devotion to family; a mensch.
- An adult or adolescent male servant. Anyone from a right-hand man (high-ranking assistant) to a low-ranking servant.
- A human, a person regardless of gender or sex, usually an adult.
- All humans collectively; mankind, humankind, humanity.
- A member of the genus Homo, especially of the species Homo sapiens.
- A male person, usually an adult; a (generally adult male) sentient being, whether human, supernatural, elf, alien, etc.
- Manliness; the quality or state of being manly.
- A husband.
- A male lover; a boyfriend.
- Synonym of manly. (Only used in man enough.)
- Used to place emphasis upon something or someone; sometimes, but not always, when actually addressing a man.
- Used to refer to oneself or one's group: I, we; construed in the third person.
- You; construed in the third person.
- Any person, one
- To supply (something) with staff or crew (of either sex).
- To take up position in order to operate (something).
- To brace (oneself), to fortify or steel (oneself) in a manly way. (Compare man up.)
- To wait on, attend to or escort.
- To accustom (a raptor or other type of bird) to the presence of people.
- A command used to display help pages in Unix and Unix-like operating systems.
- The genus Homo.
- Humankind in general.
- The Isle of Man; an island and crown dependency of the United Kingdom in the Irish Sea.
- Abbreviation of Manitoba: a province of Canada.
- A surname from Chinese.
- A surname from Chinese.
- Abbreviation of Manchester: a city in England (especially in football).
- A town in Logan County, West Virginia, United States.
- A city and department in the Ivory Coast.
- A village in Palghar district, Maharashtra, India.
- A surname
- Initialism of Metropolitan Area Network, a large computer network usually spanning a city.
- Abbreviation of Manitoba: a province of Canada.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English man, from Old English mann m (“human being, person, man”), from Proto-West Germanic *mann, from Proto-Germanic *mann- (“man”), from Proto-Indo-European *mon- (“human being, man”). Doublet of Manu. Cognates This word has many cognates, in every Germanic language (whether extant or extinct), with similarities in form and meaning. Virtually all the words below mean “man” and “husband”, with some specific cases noted. In Ingvaeonic (the languages closest to English): :* Low German Mann :* North Frisian maan, man, moon, muon :* Saterland Frisian Mon :* Scots man :* West Frisian man :* Yola man In the remainder of West Germanic: :* Alemannic German ma, Maa, Mann, mo, mà, Mànn :* Bavarian Mo, mon, moon, Må, mònn :* Cimbrian man, mann, månn :* Dutch, Limburgish, and Zealandic man :* German and Luxembourgish Mann :* Mòcheno mònn :* Vilamovian maon, mon, mōn :* Yiddish מאַן (man) In East Germanic: :* Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐌽𐌽𐌰 (manna), which meant “man”, “human“ and “person”, but likely also “husband” In North Germanic: :* Danish mand :* Faroese and Icelandic maður, both additionally meaning “human” and “person”, as in Old Norse :* Gutnish and Swedish man :* Norn, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk mann :* Norwegian Nynorsk mainnj :* Old Norse maðr Outside Germanic: :Indo-Iranian: ::* Avestan 𐬨𐬀𐬥𐬎𐬱 (manuš, “human”) ::* Sanskrit मनुस् (manus, “human”), मनु (manu, “human; humanity; thought”; “thinking; wise; intelligent”) ::* Also Sanskrit म॒नु॒ष्य॑ (manuṣyà, “human; man; huband”, whence English manusya) :Slavic (all of these mean “man” and “husband”, though in some cases the former is no longer part of the modern standard): ::* Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian муж (muž) ::* Bulgarian мъж (mǎž) ::* Czech and Slovak muž ::* Macedonian маж (maž) ::* Polish mąż (“husband”; the meaning “man” is obsolete, akin to English wife) ::* Serbo-Croatian му̑ж, mȗž ::* Slovene mož