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:
“As a preacher, I should be prompted to tell men, not so much how to get their wheat bread cheaper, as of the bread of life compared with which that is bran. Let a man only taste these loaves, and he becomes a skillful economist at once.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided; but the men: divided into mere segments of men—broken into small fragments and crumbs of life, so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“He was ... a degenerate gambler. That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die. Show me a gambler and I’ll show you a loser, show me a hero and I’ll show you a corpse.”
—Mario Puzo (b. 1920)