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PERMANENT SOURCE RECORD

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BIBLIOGRAPHIC IDENTITYmw-woman

SOURCE
RECORD.

One work. Every claim that depends on it. No citation without a consequence you can inspect.

CLAIM-LEVEL USAGE

12 PUBLIC LINKS INTO THE GRAPH.

This count excludes duplicate dossier-path citations. Open the claims below to see exactly how the source is used.

historical dictionarymw-woman

Woman — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use

AUTHOR / EDITOR
Merriam-Webster Editors
YEAR
2026
PUBLISHER
Merriam-Webster
DOI
Not recorded
SOURCE TYPE
historical dictionary
EXTERNAL RECORD
OPEN ORIGINAL ↗
4CANONICAL EDGES
1WITNESSES
0COMPARISONS
0CONTEXT LINKS
2RANKED REVEALS
2DISPUTES
3JOURNEY STAGES
2WORD DOSSIERS
01

CONTRARIAN TRUTH CLAIMS

RANKED REVEALS THAT CITE THIS SOURCE

2
RANK 112GRADE Asupports

Woman does not contain womb.

Old English wīfman combines wīf, woman or wife, with mann, human being or person; contraction hid the compound in plain sight.

wīf

wīf → wīfman → womman → woman

Etymology: wīf woman or wife plus man human being

Publishes the actual compound.

woman dossier ↗truth record ↗86UNVEILING
02

SCHOLARLY DISAGREEMENT

DISPUTE POSITIONS THAT CITE THIS SOURCE

2
03

CANONICAL RELATIONSHIP CLAIMS

EDGES THAT CITE THIS SOURCE

4
EDGE 804supportsestablished

woman → womman

Present-Day English → Middle English · continuation

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.
SCHOLAR / EDITOR
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors
Etymology and First Known Use

Publishes Middle English womman, Old English wīfman, and the pre-twelfth-century horizon.

OPEN THE PERMANENT CLAIM ↗
EDGE 805supportsestablished

womman → wīfman

Middle English → Old English · continuation

SOUND
Old English wīfman contracts and assimilates into Middle English womman.
MEANING
The compound remains a woman noun while its internal morphology becomes opaque.
SCHOLAR / EDITOR
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors
Etymology: Middle English womman from Old English wīfman

Publishes the contraction path.

OPEN THE PERMANENT CLAIM ↗
EDGE 806supportsestablished

wīfman → wīf

Old English → Old English · compound component

SOUND
Old English wīfman contains wīf as its first lexical component.
MEANING
Woman or wife combines with the separately modeled human-person component mann.
SCHOLAR / EDITOR
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors
Etymology: wīf woman or wife plus man human being

Publishes both compound components and their historical senses.

OPEN THE PERMANENT CLAIM ↗
EDGE 841supportsestablished

wīfman → mann

Old English → Old English · compound component

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.
SCHOLAR / EDITOR
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors
Etymology: wīf plus man human being

Publishes mann as the second component.

OPEN THE PERMANENT CLAIM ↗
04

LEXICAL ATTESTATIONS

WITNESSES REPORTED BY THIS SOURCE

1
womanSOURCE-REPORTED

woman

Merriam-Webster first-known-use report for woman

OPEN WITNESS 175 ↗
05

COMPARATIVE EVIDENCE

COGNATES, DESCENDANTS, AND RELATIVES

0
No comparative-relative record currently cites this source.
06

GEOGRAPHIC AND TEMPORAL CLAIMS

JOURNEY STAGES THAT CITE THIS SOURCE

3
07

NON-GENEALOGICAL CONNECTIONS

HISTORICAL CONTEXT, KEPT SEPARATE

0
No non-genealogical context link currently cites this source.
08

WORD-FAMILY REUSE

DOSSIERS THAT DEPEND ON THIS SOURCE

2
wife1 CLAIM LINKS↗woman10 CLAIM LINKS↗

3 entry-scoped citations map reviewed dossier paths onto the canonical claims above.