Noun

man (plural men)

1. An adult male human.
2. A mensch; a person of integrity and honor.
   • 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     He's more a man than any pair of rats of you in this here house...

3. An abstract person; a person of either gender, usually an adult.

   every man for himself

4. (collective) All humans collectively; mankind. Also Man.

   prehistoric man

5. A piece or token used in board games such as chess.
6. (Can we verify this sense?) A professional person.

   We'll have to call a man in to fix it

The term man (pl: men) is used for an adult human male (the term boy is the usual term for a human male child or adolescent). However, man is sometimes used to refer to humanity as a whole. Sometimes it is also used to identify a male human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "Men's rights".

The term "manhood" is used to refer to the various qualities and characteristics attributed to men such as strength and male sexuality.

Age and terminology

The term manhood is used to describe the period in a human male's life after he has transitioned from boyhood, having passed through puberty, usually having attained male secondary sexual characteristics, and symbolises a male's coming of age. The word man is used to mean any adult male. In English-speaking countries, many other words can also be used to mean an adult male such as guy, dude, buddy, bloke, fellow, chap and sometimes boy or lad, such as boys' night out. The term manhood is associated with masculinity and virility, which refer to male qualities and male gender roles.

A man is a male human. The term man (irregular plural: men) is used for an adult human male, while the term boy is the usual term for a human male child or adolescent human male. However, man is sometimes used to refer to all male humans, collectively, or to humanity as a whole.

Sourced

• What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 2, scene 2, line 303.

• In a museum in London there is an exhibit called "The Value of Man": a long coffinlike box with lots of compartments where they’ve put starch—phosphorus—flour—bottles of water and alcohol—and big pieces of gelatin. I am a man like that.
  • Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), French symbolist poet and critic. Letter dated 17th May 1867.

• Man is a make believe animal—he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
  • William Hazlitt (1778-1830). Notes of a Journey through France and Italy (1826).

• But man is above all a social and political animal; his relations with his fellow human beings form his most absorbing and important interest.
  • Logan Pearsall Smith.‘Introduction’, p. 49, A Treasury of English Aphorisms (1943).

• No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
  • John Donne (1572–1631) Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XII (1624).

From Wikiquote under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Tue Jul 27 05:43:55 2010