NODE / 0802attestedPresent-Day English

man

TRANSLITERATION manPRONUNCIATION /mæn/

human being; adult male human

DATE: before the 12th century–today
SENSE: human and adult male
FAMILY: Indo-European / Germanic
CANONICAL KEY: node:1:man:attested:sense:human-and-adult-male

The male-specific sense became dominant, while generic human uses remain historically important.

ANCESTRAL EDGES

ROOT OF THIS ROOT

GO DEEPERcontinuationestablished

Middle English · Middle English · human person

man

human being; man

SOUND: Modern man continues Middle English man with stabilized spelling and pronunciation.
MEANING: A broad human-being word develops an increasingly salient adult-male sense.
CHRONOLOGY: Recorded before the twelfth century in English.
SCHOLAR: Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors
CONFIDENCE: established

Man — Definition, Word History, and First Known UsesupportsEtymology and First Known Use

Publishes the Old and Middle English history and pre-twelfth-century horizon.

ORIGINAL ↗

Man — American Heritage Dictionary and Word HistorycontextWord History and definitions

Documents the broad older human sense and later male salience.

ORIGINAL ↗

OPEN CANONICAL EDGE 808 ↗

DIRECT DESCENDANT EDGES

THE NEXT HISTORICAL STEP

No reviewed descendants currently reuse this node. Absence describes the graph, not the entire history of the form.

TRANSITIVE DESCENDANT CLOSURE

EVERY REVIEWED BRANCH FROM HERE

This is the complete downstream closure currently supported by the canonical graph. Every displayed step is a real reviewed edge with its own sound claim, meaning claim, scholar, confidence, and citations.

UNIQUE DESCENDANT NODES: 0
REVIEWED EDGES: 0
DEEPEST PATH: 0
MODERN DOSSIERS REACHED: 0

No downstream edge has cleared review for this node. This is a graph-coverage statement, not a claim that the historical form produced nothing.

“Every” means every descendant in the reviewed SET-U graph. It does not convert missing scholarship or missing ingestion into a claim of historical completeness. The coverage ledger remains the honest denominator.

RECORDED EVIDENCE

ATTESTATIONS / FIRST KNOWN USE

SOURCE-REPORTEDlexicographic first useestablished

before the 12th century

Merriam-Webster first-known-use report for man

Source-reported horizon; no underlying manuscript object was directly inspected.

man dossier · recorded as man

Merriam-WebsterWITNESS RECORD ↗Man — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use ↗

EDITORIAL REUSE

WORD DOSSIERS USING THIS NODE

01manman · established