MAN

Definitions

1. 1. A human being; -- opposed tobeast. These men went about wide, and man found they none, But fair country, and wild beast many [a] one. R. of Glouc. The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me. Shak.
2. 2. Especially: An adult male person; a grown-up male person, as distinguished from a woman or a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. I Cor. xiii. 11. Ceneus, a woman once, and once a man. Dryden.
3. 3. The human race; mankind. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion. Gen. i. 26. The proper study of mankind is man. Pope.
4. 4. The male portion of the human race. Woman has, in general, much stronger propensity than man to the discharge of parental duties. Cowper.
5. 5. One possessing in a high degree the distinctive qualities of manhood; one having manly excellence of any kind. Shak. This was the noblest Roman of them all . . . the elements So mixed in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world "This was a man! Shak.
6. 6. An adult male servant; also, a vassal; a subject. Like master, like man. Old Proverb. The vassal, or tenant, kneeling, ungirt, uncovered, and holding up his hands between those of his lord, professed that he did become his man from that day forth, of life, limb, and earthly honor. Blackstone.
7. 7. A term of familiar address often implying on the part of the speaker some degree of authority, impatience, or haste; as, Come, man, we 've no time to lose !
8. 8. A married man; a husband; -- correlative to wife. I pronounce that they are man and wife. Book of Com. Prayer. every wife ought to answer for her man. Addison.
9. 9. One, or any one, indefinitely; -- a modified survival of the Saxon use of man, or mon, as an indefinite pronoun. A man can not make him laugh. Shak. A man would expect to find some antiquities; but all they have to show of this nature is an old rostrum of a Roman ship. Addison.
10. 10. One of the piece with which certain games, as chess or draughts, are played.