In some contexts, terms such as the human race or humankind may be used instead of man or mankind. OED team leader Simon Williams told us, “Every now and again something happens that makes it incredibly easy to define what a word means. a good-looking young man. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more. Certain fixed phrases and sayings, such as time and tide wait for no man can be easily rephrased (e.g., time and tide wait for no one). Definition of men in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. A male member of a sports team. ‘Johnson took the ball past three men and scored’.
He was one of the great men of history. We use cookies to enhance your experience on our website, including to provide targeted advertising and track usage. However, the move has been welcomed by dictionary makers, with the team from the Oxford English Dictionary saying it’s proven very helpful to have a new ‘gold-standard’ definition. noun.
It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide In nouns denoting a person, especially a man, belonging to a specified group or having a specified occupation or role. ‘A man short, his team mates survived to the end of extra time but lost the penalty … the men's team/game/race/doubles/singles/event. Subsequently, man replaced wer as the normal term for “a male person”, but at the same time the older sense “a human being” remained in use. Alternatives for other related terms exist as well: the noun manpower, for example, can usually be replaced with staff or crew, and in most cases, the verbal form to man can be expressed as to staff or to operateOld English man(n), (plural) menn (noun), mannian (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch man, German Mann, and Sanskrit manu ‘mankind’. Traditionally, the word man has been used to refer not only to adult males but also to human beings in general, regardless of sex. Four armed men burst into the room. More example sentences.
It will take them 2 000 man-hours to get the aircraft flying again. [usually plural] jump to other results. 1.2. [countable] an adult male human. In the second half of the 20th century, the generic use of man to refer to “human beings in general” (as in reptiles were here long before man appeared on the earth) became problematic; the use is now often regarded as sexist or old-fashioned. There is a historical explanation for this: in Old English, the principal sense of man was “a human being”, and the words wer and wif were used to refer specifically to “a male person” and “a female person”, respectively.
the relationships between men and women.
male person. The board of directors is dominated by middle-aged white men. /ˈmæn aʊər/. /ˈmæn aʊə (r)/. an hour, regarded in terms of the amount of work that can be done by one person in one hour.