Man

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /mæn/

Definitions

1. A person characterized by behaviors and attributes culturally linked to masculinity, regardless of gender
2. An individual who is biologically male or exhibits male traits according to societal norms
3. A human being identified as an adult male, typically marking a stage of life beyond adolescence

Etymology: Long before "man" meant a male human, it meant simply a human being, and the word's cousins across the Germanic languages still carry that older sense. Gothic "manna" meant "man", "human" and "person", and Old Norse "maðr" and modern Icelandic "maður" likewise cover "human" and "person" as well as "man". Only in English and the West Germanic languages did the word narrow toward the male sex, so the gender-specific sense is the branch that drifted, while the general human sense survives in its relatives. The deeper ancestry is ancient. Sanskrit "manus" and Avestan "manuš" both meant "human", and the Germanic forms are generally traced back to a common Indo-European root, which is why a word for a person in Vedic India and a word for a person in Old English share a family resemblance. Many Germanic cognates also carry the sense "husband", which shows how closely the idea of the adult male person was tied to marriage and household. In English the same flexibility remains in the older phrase "man and wife".

Synonyms: male, guy, fellow, gentleman

Antonyms: woman, girl, female