early 13c., man-kende, "the human race, humans collectively," from man (n.) + kind (n.). Also used occasionally in Middle English for "male persons" (late 14c.), but otherwise preserving the original gender neutrality of man (n.).

For "menfolk, the masculine division of humanity, the male sex," menkind (late 14c.) and menskind (1590s) have been used. "Womankind" was represented in Middle English by wifkin (from wife in the old sense "woman"), Old English wif-cynn). Mankind as "the human race" displaced earlier mankin (from Old English mancynn) which survived into 14c.

early 14c., " act, crime, or sin of killing another human being," in battle or not, from man (n.) + slaughter (n.). It gradually displaced manslaught, the earlier word, from Old English manslæht (Anglian), manslieht (West Saxon), from slæht, slieht "act of killing" (see slay (v.)). Middle English also had man-quelling "murder, homicide" (late 14c.), and slaughter-man (late 14c.), "an executioner; a butcher."

Etymologically it is comparable to Latin homicide, but in legal use usually it is distinguished from murder and restricted to "simple homicide, unlawful killing of another without malice either express or implied."

Manslaughter differs from murder in not proceeding from malice prepense or deliberate, which is essential to constitute murder. It differs from excusable homicide, being done in consequence of some unlawful act, whereas excusable homicide happens in consequence of misadventure. Manslaughter has been distinguished as voluntary, where the killing was intentional in a sudden heat or passion without previous malice; and involuntary, where it was not intentional, but the slayer was at the time engaged in an unlawful act less than a felony, or doing a lawful act in an unlawful manner. [Century Dictionary]

plural of man (n.). In common with German Männer, etc., it shows effects of i-mutation. Used as an indefinite pronoun ("one, people, they") from late Old English. Men's liberation first attested 1970. Men's room "a lavatory for men" is by 1908, American English. Earlier it had a more general sense:

men's room, n. "One end of this [cook and dining] room is partitioned off for a men's room, where the crew sit evenings, smoking, reading, singing, grinding their axes, telling stories, etc., before climbing the ladder to their night's rest in the bunk room ... For many years women have been employed in [logging] camps as cooks, hence the name men's room, for the crew are not allowed in the cook room except at meal time." [quoted in "Some Lumber and Other Words," in Dialect Notes, vol. II, part VI, 1904]

Menswear (also men's wear) "clothes for men" is by 1906. To separate the men from the boys in a figurative sense "distinguish the manly, mature, capable, etc. in a group from the rest" is from 1943; earliest uses tend to credit it to U.S. aviators in World War II.

One of the most expressive G.I. terms to come out of the late strife was "that's where they separate the men from the boys" — so stated by American aviators leaning from their cockpits to observe a beach-landing under fire on some Pacific island far below. ["Arts Magazine," 1947]

also air-man, "aeronaut," 1873 of pilots of balloons; 1910 of airplane pilots, from air (n.1) + man (n.).

name of a Germanic tribe or confederation from the Elbe River region that in late Roman times settled along the upper Rhine in Alsace and part of Switzerland, from Proto-Germanic *Alamanniz, probably meaning "all-man" (see all + man (n.)) and likely denoting a coalition or alliance of tribes rather than a single group.

But on another theory perhaps meaning rather "foreign men" (compare Allobroges, name of a Celtic tribe in what is now Savoy, in Latin literally "the aliens," in reference to their having driven out the original inhabitants), in which case the al- is cognate with the first element in Latin alius "the other" and English else.

The defeat of the Alemanni by a Frank-led army at Strasburg in 496 C.E. led to the conversion of Clovis and the rise of Frankish political power. The Alemanni were absorbed into the Frankish Kingdom in 796. Not historically important, but through proximity and frequent conflict with the Franks their name became the source of French Allemand, the usual word for "German, a German," and Allemagne "Germany." In modern use, Alemannish, Alemannic refers to the dialects of modern southwestern Germany; Alamannic refers to the ancient tribes and their language.

1903, "last man of a tug-of-war team," from anchor (n.) + man (n.). Later, "one who runs last in a relay race" (1934). Transferred sense "host or presenter of a TV or radio program" is from 1958.

also apeman, hypothetical "missing link" between the highest anthropoid apes and human beings, progenitor of the human race, 1869, in a translation of Haeckel, from ape (n.) + man (n.). Man-ape is attested from 1823 as "anthropoid ape, orangutan." The name Martin Halfape appears in an English roll from 1227.

"man employed on a barge," mid-15c., from barge (n.) + man (n.).

"man who tends a bar," 1837, from bar (n.2) + man (n.).

in baseball, player whose defensive position is at one of the three bases, by 1857, from base (n.) + man (n.).