In English, lower case man (pl. men) refers to an adult human male (the term boy is the usual term for a human male child or adolescent). Although men typically have a male reproductive system, some intersex people with ambiguous genitals, and biologically female transgender people, may also be classified or self-identify as a "man".
The term manhood is used to refer to masculinity, the various qualities and characteristics attributed to men such as strength and male sexuality.
Read more about Man: Etymology, Age and Terminology, Biology and Gender, Masculinity, Culture and Gender Roles
Famous quotes containing the word man:
“In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie....”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“... what is especially insufferable in a woman is a restless, bold, domineering manner, for this manner goes against nature.... [ellipsis in source] No matter what her worth, no matter that she never forgets that she could be a man by virtue of her superiority of mind and the force of her will, on the outside she must be a woman! She must present herself as that creature made to please, to love to seek support, that being who is inferior to man and who approaches the angels.”
—Elisabeth-Felicite Bayle-Mouillard (1796–1865)
“What war has always been is a puberty ceremony. It’s a very rough one, but you went away a boy and came back a man, maybe with an eye missing or whatever but godammit you were a man and people had to call you a man thereafter.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)