This entry needs anaudio pronunciation. If you are a native speaker with a microphone, pleaserecord this word. The recorded pronunciationwill appear here when it's ready. Particularly: "Jamaican and South African pronunciation"
“I wantyou to know that I hate you, that I think you are a cur, and that I'll never,never speak to you again. Oh, I don't dare to say what I think of you, you —man!”
“[…]it is not fair of you to bring against mankind double weapons ! Dangerous enough you are as woman alone, without bringing to your aid those gifts of mind suited to problems whichmen have been accustomed to arrogate to themselves.”
For more quotations using this term, seeCitations:man.
When President Roosevelt goes walking in the country about Washington he is always accompanied by two Secret Servicemen.
1913, Robert Herrick,One Woman's Life, page46:
"And they're very good people, I assure you — he's a Harvardman." It was the first time Milly had met on intimate terms a graduate of a large university.
Aman would expect, in so very ancient a town of Italy, to find some considerable antiquities; but all they have to show of this nature is an old Rostrum of a Roman ship, that stands over the door of their arsenal.
1793 August,Edmund Burke, “The Right Hon. Edmund Burke to the Comte de Mercy”, inCharles William [Wentworth-Fitzwilliam], [5th] Earl Fitzwilliam,Richard Bourke, editors,Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke; Between the Year 1744, and the Period of His Decease, in 1797, volume IV, London: Francis & John Rivington,[…], published1844, pages144–145:
Without this help, such a deplorable havoc is made in the minds ofmen (both sexes) in France, still more than in the external order of things, and the evil is so great and spreading, that a remedy is impossible on any other terms.
Similarly, the next time you learn from your reading that the averageman (you hear a good deal about him these days, most of it faintly improbable) brushes his teeth 1.02 times a day—a figure I have just made up, but it may be as good as anyone else's – ask yourself a question. How can anyone have found out such a thing? Is a woman who has read in countless advertisements that non-brushers are social offenders going to confess to a stranger that she does not brush her teeth regularly?
God createdman male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures.
1991, Barry J. Blake,Australian Aboriginal Languages: A General Introduction, page75:
Academics who study Aboriginal languages are[…] contributing toMan’s search for knowledge, a search that interests most people even if they are not personally involved in it.
2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, inThe Economist[2], volume408, number8845:
Whether modern, industrialman is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine. The machine gun is so much more lethal than the bow and arrow that comparisons are meaningless.
Expect: But was the devil a properman, gossip? / As fine a gentleman of his inches as ever I saw trusted to the stage, or any where else.
2008, Christopher Paolini,Brisingr: Or The Seven Promises of Eragon Shadeslayer and Saphira Bjartskular - Inheritance Book Three,→ISBN, page549:
Clearing a space between the tables, the men tested their prowess against one another with feats of wrestling and archery and bouts with quarterstaves. Two of the elves, aman and a woman, demonstrated their skill with swordplay—[…]
2014, Oisin McGann,Kings of the Realm: Cruel Salvation, Penguin UK,→ISBN:
There was a pair of burly dwarves – a woman and aman – bearing the markings of the formidable Thane Guards.
No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or otherwise hisman would be there with a message to say that his master would shortly join me if I would kindly wait.
"It was a brutal return to football for Brisbane Lions defender Harris Andrews as hisman Tom Hawkins booted seven goals but Lions Coach Chris Fagan said the team's defensive faults, rather than the backman's, allowed the big Cat to dominate."
2023 March 26, Phil McNulty, “England 2-0 Ukraine”, inBBC Sport[4]:
The second arrived three minutes later and was all Saka's own work, the Arsenal winger turning away from hisman on the edge of the area and curling a superb effort beyond the reach ofAnatoliy Trubin and into the top corner.
The use ofman (compareOld Englishmann,wer,wīf) to mean both "human (of any gender)" and "adult male", which developed after Old English's distinct term for the latter (wer) fell out of use, has been criticized since at least the second half of the twentieth century.[2] Critics claim that the use of "man", both alone and in compounds, to denote a human of any gender "is now often regarded as sexist or at best old-fashioned",[2] "flatly discriminatory in that it slights or ignores the membership of women in the human race".[3] TheAmerican Heritage Dictionary wrote that in 2004 75–79% of their usage panel still accepted sentences with genericman, and 86–87% accepted sentences withman-made.[4] Some style guides recommend against generic "man", and "although some editors and writers reject or disregard[…] objections to man as a generic, many now choose instead to use"human,human being orperson instead.[3]
This generic usage is still preserved in certain dialects,pidgins, andcreoles of English, as well as fixed expressions and certain religious documents and declarations such as theNicene Creed (e.g. "...for usmen and our salvation..."). Consideration of this has sometimes led to accusations of the critics of the genericman as enforcing linguisticprescriptivism.
"What happened to your eye?" she says. "Ice pick, Bayonne, 1985," he says. "Any other questions?" "Sorry,man, I was just asking."
2019 August 15, Bob Stanley, “'Groovy, groovy, groovy': listening to Woodstock 50 years on – all 38 discs”, inThe Guardian[5]:
The 19 meandering minutes of Dark Star are attractive enough but,man, they go on, while poor Creedence Clearwater Revival – headliners, with Bad Moon Rising still in the charts – are watching the clock tick in the wings.
[Sully:] If it weren’t for that snake[…]Man wouldn’t even be in this mess right now.
2013, Jenny Cheshire, “Grammaticalisation in social context: The emergence of a new English pronoun”, inJournal of Sociolinguistics[6], volume17, number 5, page609:
before I got arrestedman paid for my own ticket to go Jamaica you know . but I’ve never paid to go on no holiday before this time I paid (Dexter, MLE)
Oh, come on. Help a brother out. People see you coppin', might inspire them. Look, I know you ain't payin' bills right now.Man must have bare peas saved up.
He was of all colours Þatman may se of flours Be-twene Mydsomer and May.
2013, Jenny Cheshire, “Grammaticalisation in social context: The emergence of a new English pronoun”, inJournal of Sociolinguistics[8], volume17, number 5, page609:
I don’t really mind how . how my girl looks if she looks decent yeah and there’s one bit of her face that just looks mashed yeah . I don’t care it’s her personalityman’s looking at (Alex, MLE corpus [MLE])
The usage ofman as a pronoun originally died out in the 15th century. It has independently reappeared in MLE. There it is most commonly used as a first person pronoun or as an indefinite personal pronoun, but uses in the second and third person are also attested.[1]
2023 March 8, David Clough, “The long road that led to Beeching”, inRAIL, number978, page39:
In Britain, nearly 2,500 steam locomotives were built, 999 to new designs. Although the latter were modern, they were still labour-intensive toman and maintain, during a period of full employment when working for poor pay in the dirty railway environment was unattractive.
2021 October 14, Oren Liebermann, “CENTCOM disputes Air Force account of attempted hijacking at Kabul airport during Afghanistan evacuation”, inCNN[9]:
“To stay open, the senior enlisted leader of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan Forward said he needed people to cover security,” Duncan wrote. “Personnel Recovery Task Force (PRTF) Pilots, maintainers and support personnel donned their vests, helmets and M-4 rifles andmanned defensive fighting positions.”
↑1.01.1Jenny Cheshire (2013), “Grammaticalisation in social context: The emergence of a new English pronoun”, inJournal of Sociolinguistics[1], volume17, number 5, pages608–633
The normal plural in contemporary Afrikaans ismans. The formmanne now usually refers to the members of a male group, such as a group of friends or a team or unit. Compare:
Vroue enmans moet gelyke regte hê. ―Women and men must have equal rights.
Diemanne het goed gespeel vandag. ―The men played well today.
2011, Vida Beinortienė,Romų kalba [Roma Language][10] (overall work in Lithuanian), Panevėžio Vaikų Dienos Užimtumo Centras [Panevėžys Children's Day Care Center],→ISBN, posakiai [expressions], page64:
The normal plural ismannen. The unchanged formman is used after numerals only; it refers to the size of a group rather than a number of individuals. For example:In totaal verloren er 5000man hun leven in die slag. (“5000men altogether lost their lives in that battle.”) The pluralmans is dated, now mostly occurring in nautical contexts or in dialect.
1 Also used before feminine adjectives and nouns beginning with a vowel ormuteh. 2 Also used as the polite singular form. For the singular persons there are gender-neutral neologismsman,tan,san. These are extremely rare.
Barreiro, Xavier Varela; Guinovart, Xavier Gómez (2006–2018), “mãao”, inCorpus Xelmírez: corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval [Corpus Xelmírez: linguistic corpus of Medieval Galicia] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela:Instituto da Lingua Galega
Man is used in the nominative case only; for the oblique cases forms of the pronouneiner are used. For example:Man kann nicht immer tun, waseinen glücklich macht. —One cannot always do what makesone happy.
Sinceman derives from the same source asMann(“man; male”), its use is considered problematic by some feminists. They have proposed alternatingman and the feminine neologismfrau, or using the generic neologismmensch. This usage has gained some currency in feminist and left-wing publications, but remains rare otherwise.
In the sense of “someone,”man is often translated using the passive voice (“I was told that...” rather than “someone told me that...”).
1584, “Exodus. Aunnur Bok Moſe”, in Guðbrandur Þorláksson, transl.,Biblia, Þad Er Øll Heiloͤg Ritning vtloͤgd a Norrænu[13], Hólar: Jón Jónsson, chapter 16, verse 33, page76:
Og Moſes ſegde til Aaron / Tak þier eina Føtu / og legg eirn Gomor fullan afMan þar i / og lꜳt þad vardueitaſt fyrer DROTTNI til ydar ep[t]erkomande Kynkuijſla
Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), “man”, inÍslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies,→ISBN(Available atMálið.is under the “Eldri orðabækur” tab.)
Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the criticaltonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.
bleſſid is þeman þat ſuffriþ temptacioun / foꝛ whanne he ſchal be pꝛeued .· he ſchal reſſeyue þe coꝛoun of lijf · which god bihiȝte tomen þat louen hym
Aperson who endures temptation is blessed, because when they've been tested, they'll receive the crown of life that God promised to thepeople who love him.
Benecke, Georg Friedrich; Müller, Wilhelm; Zarncke, Friedrich (1863), “man”, inMittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch: mit Benutzung des Nachlasses von Benecke, Stuttgart: S. Hirzel
The reduced forms with an apostrophe areenclitic; they immediately follow verbs or conjunctions.Dü is deleted altogether in such contexts. Et is not enclitic and can stand in any unstressed position; the full subject formhat is now rarely used. Inreflexive use, only full object forms occur. Dual formswat / unk andjat / junk are obsolete. Attributive and independent possessives are not distinguished in Mooring.
The reduced forms with an apostrophe areenclitic; they immediately follow verbs or conjunctions.Dü is deleted altogether in such contexts.
Et is not enclitic and can stand in any unstressed position; the full subject formhat is now rarely used. Inreflexive use, only full object forms occur.
The dual forms are dated, but not obsolete as in other dialects.
Independent possessives are distinguished from attributive ones only with plural referents.
Man sċeal lǣwedum mannum seċġan be heora andġietes mǣðe, swā þæt hīe ne bēon þurh þā dēopnesse ǣmōde ne þurh þā langsumnesse ǣþrȳtte.
One has to talk to laymen according to how much they understand, so they are not intimidated by the depth of what one is saying or bored by the length.
When Jesus was a baby, he was fed just like other babies are fed. He lay wrapped up in a cradle, just like other babies do. He was carried until he could walk by himself.
Polański, Kazimierz (1973), “man”, inSłownik etymologiczny języka Drzewian połabskich [Etymological Dictionary of the Polabian Drevani Language] (in Polish), number 3 (ľǫ̇dü – perĕ), Wrocław; Warszawa etc.: Ossolineum, page356
Polański, Kazimierz; James Allen Sehnert (1967), “man”, inPolabian-English Dictionary, The Hague, Paris: Mouton & Co, page92
Olesch, Reinhold (1962), “Mann”, inThesaurus Linguae Dravaenopolabicae [Thesaurus of the Drevani language] (in German), volumes1: A – O, Cologne, Vienna: Böhlau Verlag,→ISBN, page552
2000, Marron C. Fort, transl.,Dät Näie Tästamänt un do Psoolme in ju aasterlauwerfräiske Uurtoal fon dät Seelterlound, Fräislound, Butjoarlound, Aastfräislound un do Groninger Umelounde [The New Testament and the Psalms in the East Frisian language, native to Saterland, Friesland, Butjadingen, East Frisia and the Ommelanden of Groningen],→ISBN, Dät Evangelium ätter Matthäus 1:23:
Sjooët, n Maiden skäl n Bäiden undfange, n Súun skäl ju uurwinne, unman skäl him dän NomeImmanuel reke, dät hat uursät:God is mäd uus.
Behold, a virgin shall become pregnant with a child, she will give birth to a son, andthey shall give him the nameImmanuel, which is translated:God is with us.
^Oftedal, M. (1956),A linguistic survey of the Gaelic dialects of Scotland, Vol. III: The Gaelic of Leurbost, Isle of Lewis, Oslo: Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap
(adult male human): The unchanged pluralman is sometimes used after numerals. It means "men" as a measure for size or strength of a group rather than individuals:
Med treman kan vi lyfta byrån ―With threepeople we can lift the cupboard
Military or police personnel, team members, demonstrators and the like are often counted using this unchanged plural. The same goes with German and Dutch whereMann andman can have an unchanged plural form in this particular case.
(husband): Not used in other contexts, where it could be confused with a man in general.
1984,Adolphson & Falk, “I fördatorisk tid [In pre-computer times[Literally, "In pre-computerish/computeric time" – sounds ad hoc in Swedish as well. Could also be translated as "In a pre-computer age/time" or the like.]]”, inÖver tid och rum [Across time and space][19]:
För länge, länge sen såg inte världen ut som nu.Man levde inte alls på samma sätt som jag och du.Man hade ständiga problem med sin kommunikation. För att göra sig hörd varman tvungen attta ton.Man siktade mot mål, menman träffade bredvid, för inget var exakt i en fördatorisk tid.Man sände sina dokument med män i uniform, som färdades på snö och is i hällregn och storm.Man köpte sina tjänster med papper och metall – ett besynnerligt system som fick imperier på fall.Man sa att grunden var solid, men staten kom på glid, för system var instabila i en fördatorisk tid. Tiderna förändras. Andra skata vid. Sanningar föråldras. De formas av sin egen tid.Man byggde stora städer därman trängdes med varann – därman omgav sig med dån och larm och stod i rök och damm.Man sökte efter ledare med styrka och förstånd, som skulle föra folket bort från krig och undergång. En roll alltför komplex för en enda individ, så inget blev beständigt i en fördatorisk tid. Tiderna förändras. Andra skata vid. Sanningar föråldras.Man formas av sin egen tid.Man måste stiga upp varje vardag klockan fem, för att stå vid en maskin tills det blev kväll ochman gick hem.Man levde under hot, på gränsen till panik, såman sökte efter sanningen i stjärnornas mystik.Man talade om fred, menman låg i ständig strid, förmanförlitade sig på människan i fördatorisk tid.
A long, long time ago, the world was different from today [did not look like now].People [one] did not at all live in the same way as me and you [literally translated].You [one] had constant problems with your [one's] communication. To make yourself [oneself] heard,you [one] had to speak up [take tone].You [one] aimed for goals [or targets], butyou [one] hit next to them [hit next-to/beside (the goal/target, missing it)], because nothing was exact in a pre-computer time.You [one] sent your [one's] documents with men in uniform, who traveled on snow and ice in pouring rain and storm.You [one] bought your [one's] services with paper and metal – a peculiar [strange] system that brought empires down ["got empires on fall"].People [one] said that the foundation was solid, but the state started slipping [went [came]on the slide [on slide]], because systems were unstable in a pre-computer time. [The] times change. Others will follow/ensue [shall pick up]. Truths become outdated ["are en-aged"]. They are shaped by their own time.People [one] built large cities wherethey [one] crowded together [thronged with one another] – wherethey [one] surrounded themselves [oneself] with roar and racket and stood in smoke and dust.They [one] sought leaders with strength and reason, that would lead [or bring] the people away from war and ruin [or "doom," or "destruction" in the sense of ruin/doom]. A role much too complex for a single individual, so nothing endured [became enduring] in a pre-computer time. [The] times change. Others will follow/ensue [shall pick up]. Truths become outdated ["are en-aged"].You [one] are shaped by your [one's] own time.You [one] had to get up every weekday at five, to stand at a machine until the evening and then go home [until it became evening andyou [one] went home].You [one] lived under threat, on the verge of panic, soyou [one] searched for the truth in the mystery of the stars [in the stars' mystique].People [one] spoke of peace, butthey [one] were [lay] in constant conflict [battle], becauseyou [one] relied on [and put your trust in] man/humans ["the human" – the human species or humans collectively] in pre-computer times.
Intuited as a singular pronoun referring to people individually in a generalized sense, like Englishone.
Man does not sound formal the way Englishone might when used instead ofyou.Man is usually the only option when eitheryou orone might be used in English, as Swedishdu(“you”) andni(“you (plural)”) sound more like "you specifically." See the quotations for (etymology 1 sense 1) above for examples of howman can be translated while preserving tone.
See the usage notes forbli,finnas, andskall for three other examples of words that have a direct translation that is often unidiomatic or a poor match for tone.
R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke,et al., editors (1950–present), “man”, inGeiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies
Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828), William Barnes, editor,A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published1867,page55
