What does man mean?

What does man mean?. The world's largest and most trusted free online dictionary: definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more.

What does man mean? - The Free Dictionary

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[n] an adult person who is male (as opposed to a woman)(there were two women and six men on the bus)[v] take charge of a certain job; occupy a certain work place(Mr. Smith manned the reception desk in the morning)[n] someone who serves in the armed forces; a member of a military force(two

man

man - The Free Dictionary

[n] an adult person who is male (as opposed to a woman)
(there were two women and six men on the bus)

[v] take charge of a certain job; occupy a certain work place
(Mr. Smith manned the reception desk in the morning)

[n] someone who serves in the armed forces; a member of a military force
(two men stood sentry duty)

[v] provide with workers
(We cannot man all the desks Students were manning the booths)

[n] the generic use of the word to refer to any human being
(it was every man for himself)

[n] any living or extinct member of the family Hominidae characterized by superior intelligence, articulate speech, and erect carriage

[n] a male subordinate
(the chief stationed two men outside the building he awaited word from his man in Havana)

[n] an adult male person who has a manly character (virile and courageous competent)
(the army will make a man of you)

[n] a manservant who acts as a personal attendant to his employer
(Jeeves was Bertie Wooster's man)

[n] a male person who plays a significant role (husband or lover or boyfriend) in the life of a particular woman
(she takes good care of her man)

[n] one of the British Isles in the Irish Sea

[n] game equipment consisting of an object used in playing certain board games
(he taught me to set up the men on the chess board he sacrificed a piece to get a strategic advantage)

[n] all of the living human inhabitants of the earth
(all the world loves a lover she always used `humankind' because `mankind' seemed to slight the women)

Other vocabulary

m, m-1, m-1 rifle, m-theory, m. j. schleiden, m.m., m1, m2, m3, ma, ma'am, maalox, maar, maarianhamina, mac, macabre, macaca, macaca irus, macaca mulatta, macaca radiata, macaca sylvana, macadam, macadamia, macadamia integrifolia, macadamia nut, macadamia nut tree, macadamia ternifolia, macadamia tetraphylla, macadamia tree, macadamise, a, a battery, a bit, a capella singing, a cappella, a cappella singing, a couple of, a few, a fortiori, a good deal, a great deal, a horizon, a hundred times, a kempis, a la carte, a la mode, a level, a little, a lot, a million times, a posteriori, a priori, a trifle, a'man, a-bomb, a-horizon, a-line, a-list, a-ok, a-okay

Dictionary

A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.

A broad distinction is made between general and specialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include words in specialist fields, rather than a complete range of words in the language. Lexical items that describe concepts in specific fields are usually called terms instead of words, although there is no consensus whether lexicology and terminology are two different fields of study. In theory, general dictionaries are supposed[citation needed] to be semasiological, mapping word to definition, while specialized dictionaries are supposed to be onomasiological, first identifying concepts and then establishing the terms used to designate them. In practice, the two approaches are used for both types. There are other types of dictionaries that do not fit neatly into the above distinction, for instance bilingual (translation) dictionaries, dictionaries of synonyms (thesauri), and rhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a general purpose monolingual dictionary.

There is also a contrast between prescriptive or descriptive dictionaries; the former reflect what is seen as correct use of the language while the latter reflect recorded actual use. Stylistic indications (e.g. "informal" or "vulgar") in many modern dictionaries are also considered by some to be less than objectively descriptive.

The first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times around 2300 BCE, in the form of bilingual dictionaries, and the oldest surviving monolingual dictionaries are Chinese dictionaries c. 3rd century BCE. The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall, written in 1604, and monolingual dictionaries in other languages also began appearing in Europe at around this time. The systematic study of dictionaries as objects of scientific interest arose as a 20th-century enterprise, called lexicography, and largely initiated by Ladislav Zgusta. The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy, with the practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused by others of having an "astonishing" lack of method and critical-self reflection.