Man (word)

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However, Man in traditional usage refers to the species, to humanity as a whole. Equating the term for the male with the whole species is commonly occurring in other languages (e.g. French l'Homme), particularly in traditional registers, but not uniformly even within language groups. For example, the German equivalent of "Man" is "Mensch" which is male grammatically (itself a possible expression of the tradition as this is an exception to normal morphology which would have Mensch neuter) but refers to a general person not a male one. The usage persists in all registers of English although it has an old-fashioned tone. Modern Standard Chinese has 男人 (man) and 女人 (woman) both diglyphs with 人 but 人 is analogous to the German Mensch, not English Man and the gender designations of individuals are both prefixed.



It is derived from a Proto-Indo-European root *man- (see Sanskrit/Avestan manu-, Slavic mǫž "man, male").[1] In Hindu mythology, Manu is a title accorded the progenitor of humankind. The Slavic forms (Russian muzh "man, male" etc.) are derived from a suffixed stem *man-gyo-. *Manus in Indo-European mythology was the first man, see Mannus, Manu (Hinduism)


Some etymologies treat the root as an independent one, as does the American Heritage Dictionary. Of the etymologies that do make connections with other Indo-European roots, man "the thinker" is the most traditional — that is, the word is connected with the root *men- "to think" (cognate to mind). This etymology presumes that man is the one who thinks, which fits the definition of man given by René Descartes as a "rational animal", indebted to Aristotle's ζῷον λόγoν ἔχον, which is also the basis for Homo sapiens (see Human self-reflection). This etymology, however, is not generally accepted. A second potential etymology connects with Latin "manus" ("hand"), which has the same form as Sanskrit "manus", and is related to French "main" ("hand").[2]



The inflected forms of Old English mann are[4]

sg. pl.
nom. mann menn
gen. mannes manna
dat. menn mannum
acc. mann menn

The inflected forms of Old High German word for man (without i-mutation) are[5]

sg. pl.
nom. man man
gen. mannes mannô
acc. manann, also man man

The inflected forms of the Old Norse word for man, maðr, are:[6]

sg. pl.
nom. maðr menn
acc. mann menn
dat. manni mönnum
gen. manns manna


Mannus is the Latinized form of the Germanic term as given by Tacitus. According to Tacitus, Mannus is the son of the earth-born Tuisto and the ancestor and founder of the three basic groupings of the Germanic tribes:

Modern usage[edit]


The verb to man (i.e. "to furnish [a fortress or a ship] with a company of men" dates to early Middle English.

The word has been applied generally as a suffix in modern combinations like "fireman", "policeman" and "mailman." With social changes in the later 20th century, new gender-neutral terms were coined, such as "firefighter", "police officer" and "mail carrier," to redress the gender-specific connotations of occupational names. Feminists argued that the confusion of man as human and man as male were linguistic symptoms of male-centric definitions of humanity.[8] The declining use of Man as the generic term suggests that these arguments have found some broad acceptance in the anglophone world.

In US American slang, man! also came to be used as an interjection, not necessarily addressing the listener but simply added for emphasis, much like boy!. Also in American English, the expression The Man referring to "the oppressive powers that be" originated in the Southern States in the 19th century, and became widespread in the urban underworld from the 1950s.

See also[edit]


  3. ^ Online Etymology Dictionary s.v. bridegroom. Retrieved 2011-12-01.
  5. ^ Karl August Hahn, Althochdeutsche Grammatik, p. 37.
  6. ^ Old Norse Lesson Seven by Óskar Guðlaugsson and Haukur Þorgeirsson
  8. ^ Dale Spender, 1980. Man-Made Language. See wiki entry: