man of straw

from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Man \Man\ (m[a^]n), n.; pl. {Men} (m[e^]n). [AS. mann, man,
   monn, mon; akin to OS., D., & OHG. man, G. mann, Icel.
   ma[eth]r, for mannr, Dan. Mand, Sw. man, Goth. manna, Skr.
   manu, manus, and perh. to Skr. man to think, and E. mind.
   [root]104. Cf. {Minx} a pert girl.]
   1. A human being; -- opposed to {beast}.
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            These men went about wide, and man found they none,
            But fair country, and wild beast many [a] one. --R.
                                                  of Glouc.
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            The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to
            him as it doth to me.                 --Shak.
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            'Tain't a fit night out for man nor beast! --W. C.
                                                  Fields
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   2. Especially: An adult male person; a grown-up male person,
      as distinguished from a woman or a child.
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            When I became a man, I put away childish things. --I
                                                  Cor. xiii. 11.
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            Ceneus, a woman once, and once a man. --Dryden.
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   3. The human race; mankind.
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            And God said, Let us make man in our image, after
            our likeness, and let them have dominion. --Gen. i.
                                                  26.
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            The proper study of mankind is man.   --Pope.
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   4. The male portion of the human race.
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            Woman has, in general, much stronger propensity than
            man to the discharge of parental duties. --Cowper.
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   5. One possessing in a high degree the distinctive qualities
      of manhood; one having manly excellence of any kind.
      --Shak.
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            This was the noblest Roman of them all . . . the
            elements
            So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
            And say to all the world "This was a man!" --Shak.
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   6. An adult male servant; also, a vassal; a subject.
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            Like master, like man.                --Old Proverb.
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            The vassal, or tenant, kneeling, ungirt, uncovered,
            and holding up his hands between those of his lord,
            professed that he did become his man from that day
            forth, of life, limb, and earthly honor.
                                                  --Blackstone.
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   7. A term of familiar address at one time implying on the
      part of the speaker some degree of authority, impatience,
      or haste; as, Come, man, we 've no time to lose! In the
      latter half of the 20th century it became used in a
      broader sense as simply a familiar and informal form of
      address, but is not used in business or formal situations;
      as, hey, man! You want to go to a movie tonight?.
      [Informal]
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   8. A married man; a husband; -- correlative to wife.
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            I pronounce that they are man and wife. --Book of
                                                  Com. Prayer.
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            every wife ought to answer for her man. --Addison.
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   9. One, or any one, indefinitely; -- a modified survival of
      the Saxon use of man, or mon, as an indefinite pronoun.
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            A man can not make him laugh.         --Shak.
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            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.
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   10. One of the piece with which certain games, as chess or
       draughts, are played.
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   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, repairman, 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).
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   {Man ape} (Zool.), 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 sin} (Script.), one who is the embodiment of evil,
      whose coming is represented (--2 Thess. ii. 3) as
      preceding the second coming of Christ. [A Hebraistic
      expression]

   {Man of war}.
       (a) A warrior; a soldier. --Shak.
       (b) (Naut.) See in the Vocabulary.
       (c) See {Portuguese man-of-war} under {man-of-war} and
           also see {Physalia}.

   {Man-stopping bullet} (Mil.), a bullet which will produce a
      sufficient shock to stop a soldier advancing in a charge;
      specif., a small-caliber bullet so modified as to expand
      when striking the human body, producing a severe wound
      which is also difficult to treat medically. Types of
      bullets called {hollow-nosed bullets}, {soft-nosed
      bullets} and {hollow-point bullets} are classed as
      man-stopping. The {dumdum bullet} or {dumdum} is another
      well-known variety. Such bullets were originally designed
      for wars with savage tribes.

   {great man}, a man[2] who has become prominent due to
      substantial and widely admired contributions to social or
      intellectual endeavors; as, Einstein was one of the great
      men of the twentieth century.

   {To be one's own man}, to have command of one's self; not to
      be subject to another.
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