MANHOOD

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does manhood mean? 

• MANHOOD (noun)
  The noun MANHOOD has 3 senses:

1. the state of being a man; manly qualities

2. the quality of being human

3. the status of being a man

  Familiarity information: MANHOOD used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MANHOOD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The state of being a man; manly qualities

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("manhood" is a kind of...):

adulthood (the state (and responsibilities) of a person who has attained maturity)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The quality of being human

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

humanity; humanness; manhood

Context example:

he feared the speedy decline of all manhood

Hypernyms ("manhood" is a kind of...):

quality (an essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone)

Attribute:

human (having human form or attributes as opposed to those of animals or divine beings)

nonhuman (not human; not belonging to or produced by or appropriate to human beings)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The status of being a man

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("manhood" is a kind of...):

berth; billet; office; place; position; post; situation; spot (a job in an organization)

 Context examples 

His very heart was bleeding, and it took all the manhood of him—and there was a royal lot of it, too—to keep him from breaking down.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I could not acknowledge the paternity to the world, but I gave him the best of educations, and since he came to manhood I have kept him near my person.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“If you leave me now,” whispered the woman, “then shame forever upon your manhood.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Women work a good many miracles, and I have a persuasion that they may perform even that of raising the standard of manhood by refusing to echo such sayings.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Quite true, Hump, quite true. I have no fictions that make for nobility and manhood.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

She went so far as to imagine Martin proposing, herself putting the words into his mouth; and she rehearsed her refusal, tempering it with kindness and exhorting him to true and noble manhood.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

It was at a council, one night, in the big igloo of Klosh-Kwan, the chief, that Keesh showed the blood that ran in his veins and the manhood that stiffened his back.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Shorn of its glamour and romance, Arctic travel became to them a reality too harsh for their manhood and womanhood.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

When I thought of the airy dreams of youth that are incapable of realization, I thought of the better state preceding manhood that I had outgrown; and then the contented days with Agnes, in the dear old house, arose before me, like spectres of the dead, that might have some renewal in another world, but never more could be reanimated here.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

If I take up my pen to tell you about this, you must not look for any story at my hands, for I was only in my earliest manhood when these things befell; and although I saw something of the stories of other lives, I could scarce claim one of my own.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)