NODE / 0804attestedOld English
mann
TRANSLITERATION mann
human being; person; man
- DATE
- Old English
- SENSE
- human person
- FAMILY
- Indo-European / West Germanic
- CANONICAL KEY
- node:3:mann:attested:sense:human-person
Old English also used wer and wīf to distinguish male and female.
01ANCESTRAL EDGES
ROOT OF THIS ROOT
GO DEEPERinheritanceestablished
Proto-Germanic · Proto-Germanic · human person*mann-
human being; person
- SOUND
- Old English mann reflects Proto-Germanic *mann-.
- MEANING
- The human-person field remains visible across Germanic.
- CHRONOLOGY
- The parent is reconstructed; the child is attested.
- SCHOLAR
- Calvert Watkins and American Heritage Dictionary Editors
- CONFIDENCE
- established
02DIRECT DESCENDANT EDGES
THE NEXT HISTORICAL STEP
DESCENDANTcontinuationestablished
Middle English · Middle English · human personman
human being; man
- SOUND
- Middle English man continues Old English mann or mon.
- MEANING
- Human being and person remain central while male-specific usage expands.
- SCHOLAR
- Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors
- CONFIDENCE
- established
DESCENDANTcompound componentestablished
Old English · Old English · female person compoundwīfman
woman; female person
- SOUND
- Old English wīfman contains mann as its second lexical component beside wīf.
- MEANING
- The historical human-being or person sense specializes the compound as female person.
- CHRONOLOGY
- A morphological relation inside Old English.
- SCHOLAR
- Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors
- CONFIDENCE
- established
03TRANSITIVE 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
- 5
- REVIEWED EDGES
- 5
- DEEPEST PATH
- 3
- MODERN DOSSIERS REACHED
- 2
HISTORICAL STEP 012 EDGES
STEP 01continuationestablished
- SOUND
- Middle English man continues Old English mann or mon.
- MEANING
- Human being and person remain central while male-specific usage expands.
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors2 CITATIONSEDGE 809 ↗ STEP 01compound componentestablished
- SOUND
- Old English wīfman contains mann as its second lexical component beside wīf.
- MEANING
- The historical human-being or person sense specializes the compound as female person.
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors2 CITATIONSEDGE 841 ↗ HISTORICAL STEP 022 EDGES
STEP 02continuationestablished
- SOUND
- Old English wīfman contracts and assimilates into Middle English womman.
- MEANING
- The compound remains a woman noun while its internal morphology becomes opaque.
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors2 CITATIONSEDGE 805 ↗ STEP 02continuationestablished
- 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.
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors2 CITATIONSEDGE 808 ↗ HISTORICAL STEP 031 EDGE
STEP 03continuationestablished
- SOUND
- Middle English womman develops to modern woman with reduction of the unstressed final syllable and modern spelling.
- MEANING
- The female-person compound remains the ordinary adult-female noun.
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors2 CITATIONSEDGE 804 ↗ “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.
04RECORDED EVIDENCE
ATTESTATIONS / FIRST KNOWN USE
NO RECORDED WITNESS ATTACHED.The reviewed graph does not yet attach a source-reported or directly inspected witness to this canonical form.
05EDITORIAL REUSE
WORD DOSSIERS USING THIS NODE