man
noun · adjective · verb
Simple meaning
A male person who plays a significant role in the life of a particular woman.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
manIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmæn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
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.”
collective
All of the living human inhabitants of the earth
collective
All human males collectively: mankind.
A male subordinate
An adult person who is male (as opposed to a woman)
A male person, usually an adult; a (generally adult male) sentient being, whether human, supernatural, elf, alien, etc.
adjective
Synonym of manly. (Only used in man enough.)
verb
transitive
To supply (something) with staff or crew (of either sex).
transitive
To take up position in order to operate (something).
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A male person who plays a significant role (husband or lover or boyfriend) in the life of a particular woman
Used this way, man is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It suits considered writing and prepared speech.
“She takes good care of her man.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use man
- “I wanted to be a guitar man on a road tour, but instead I'm a flag man on a road crew.”noun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.