Man (word)

The term man (from Proto-Germanic *mannaz or *manwaz "man, person") and words derived from it can designate any or even all of the human race regardless of their sex or age. The word developed into Old English man, mann meaning primarily "adult male human" but secondarily capable of designating a person of unspecified gender, "someone, one" or humanity at large (see also German man, Old Norse maðr, Gothic manna "man"). More restricted English terms for an adult male were wer (cognate: Latin vir; survives as the first element in "werewolf") and guma (cognate: Latin homo; survives as the second element in "bridegroom").

However, man in traditional usage (without an article) refers to the species, to humanity, or "mankind", as a whole. The usage persists in all registers of English although it has an old-fashioned tone.

Equating the term for the male with the whole species is common in many languages, for example in French (l'Homme). On the other hand, some languages have a general word for 'human individual' which can apply to people of either gender. German has the general word Mensch, but Mann for (adult) male person; Latin has the general word homo and for males the word vir; modern Standard Chinese has 人 (/rén/), analogous to the German Mensch not English Man; the words 男人 (man) and 女人 (woman) are both diglyphs with the gender designations of individuals prefixed before 人.

*Mannaz or *Manwaz is also the Proto-Germanic reconstructed name of the m-rune ᛗ.

The Latin root word man means “hand.” This root word is the word origin of a number of English vocabulary words, including manuscript, manufacture, and manicure. An easy way to remember that man means “hand” is through the word manual, an adjective which describes a task done by “hand.”

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