9. One, or any one, indefinitely; — a modified survival of the Saxon use of man, or mon, as an indefinite pronoun. A man can not make him laugh. Shak. A man would expect to find some antiquities; but all they have to show of this nature is an old rostrum of a Roman ship. Addison.
10. One of the piece with which certain games, as chess or draughts, are played.
Note: Man is often used as a prefix in composition, or as a separate adjective, its sense being usually self-explaining; as, man child, man eater or maneater, man-eating, man hater or manhater, man-hating, manhunter, man-hunting, mankiller, man-killing, man midwife, man pleaser, man servant, man-shaped, manslayer, manstealer, man- stealing, manthief, man worship, etc. Man is also used as a suffix to denote a person of the male sex having a business which pertains to the thing spoken of in the qualifying part of the compound; ashman, butterman, laundryman, lumberman, milkman, fireman, showman, waterman, woodman. Where the combination is not familiar, or where some specific meaning of the compound is to be avoided, man is used as a separate substantive in the foregoing sense; as, apple man, cloth man, coal man, hardware man, wood man (as distinguished from woodman). Man ape (Zoöl.), a anthropoid ape, as the gorilla. — Man at arms, a designation of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for a soldier fully armed. — Man engine, a mechanical lift for raising or lowering people through considerable distances; specifically (Mining), a contrivance by which miners ascend or descend in a shaft. It consists of a series of landings in the shaft and an equal number of shelves on a vertical rod which has an up and down motion equal to the distance between the successive landings. A man steps from a landing to a shelf and is lifted or lowered to the next landing, upon which he them steps, and so on, traveling by successive stages. — Man Friday, a person wholly subservient to the will of another, like Robinson Crusoe's servant Friday. — Man of straw, a puppet; one who is controlled by others; also, one who is not responsible pecuniarily. — Man-of-the earth (Bot.), a twining plant (Ipomoea pandurata) with leaves and flowers much like those of the morning-glory, but having an immense tuberous farinaceous root. — Man of war. (a) A warrior; a soldier. Shak. (b) (Naut.) See in the Vocabulary. — To be one's own man, to have command of one's self; not to be subject to another.
MAN
Man, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Manned; p. pr. & vb. n. Manning.]
1. To supply with men; to furnish with a sufficient force or complement of men, as for management, service, defense, or the like; to guard; as, to man a ship, boat, or fort. See how the surly Warwick mans the wall ! Shak. They man their boats, and all their young men arm. Waller.
2. To furnish with strength for action; to prepare for efficiency; to fortify. "Theodosius having manned his soul with proper reflections." Addison.
3. To tame, as a hawk. [R.] Shak.
4. To furnish with a servants. [Obs.] Shak.
5. To wait on as a manservant. [Obs.] Shak.
Note: In "Othello," V. ii. 270, the meaning is uncertain, being, perhaps: To point, to aim, or to manage. To man a yard (Naut.), to send men upon a yard, as for furling or reefing a sail. — To man the yards (Naut.), to station men on the yards as a salute or mark of respect.