Men
nounAdult human males, the plural of man.
How to spell men
3 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce men
What does men mean?
- nounAdult human males, the plural of man.
Men in a sentence
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Two men carried the heavy sofa up the stairs.
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The men in the warehouse start their shift at six.
Where does men come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The word comes from Old English mann, meaning a human being or person, whose plural was menn. That plural was not formed by adding -s but by a process called i-mutation, in which an old plural ending caused the root vowel to shift from a to e before the ending itself wore away. The same kind of vowel-change plural survives in foot/feet, tooth/teeth and goose/geese, all inherited from the Germanic family of languages. Originally mann referred to any person of either sex, and the narrower sense of an adult male grew dominant only over the centuries. This long native history is why men keeps its short, irregular shape with no s on the end.
How the word is built
- men (irregular plural of man, via Old English mann/menn; the plural was formed by an internal vowel change rather than a suffix)
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