''unman'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260718130800-00-⌔

unman - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

unman (third-person singular simple present unmans, present participle unmanning, simple past and past participle unmanned)

• (transitive, archaic) To divest of humanity.
  • ✤ * Unman not therefore thy self by a beastial transformation, nor realize old Fables.*¹
• (transitive, archaic) To castrate; to remove the manhood of.
  • ✤ Synonym: emasculate
  • ✤ He unmanned himself under a pine-tree and bled to death on the spot.²
• (transitive, figurative) To sap (a person) of the strength, whether physical or emotional, required to deal with a situation.
  • ✤ Synonym: emasculate
  • ✤ I hope to God his theories will not unman him in action, that he will not be musing and refining when he should be leading the Jacks […]³
  • ✤ He dressed moodily, and left the room to go down to breakfast. Breakfast would at least alleviate this sinking feeling which was unmanning him.⁴
  • ✤ Meta has created a vision of life in which, without A.I. aiding his every word, an individual can be left reeling by the simplest of human interactions, unmanned by an ordinary dad joke.⁵
• (transitive) To deprive of men.

Etymology

From un- (“de-, dis-, away”) +‎ man (“male person”). Compare Dutch ontmannen, German entmannen, both “to unman, emasculate, castrate”.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA: /ʌnˈmæn/
• Rhymes: -æn

Printed 2026-07-18.

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Footnotes

1. 1881, Sir Thomas Browne, William Alexander Greenhill, Religio Medici; Letter to a Friend; Christian Morals, page 215: ↩

2. 1906, James George Frazer, Attis, Otis, Osiris, volume 1, page 264: ↩

3. 1855, William Delafield Arnold, Oakfield: Or, Fellowship in the East, page 280: ↩

4. 1919 May 10 – June 28, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, “A Damsel in Distress”, in George Horace Lorimer, editor, The Saturday Evening Post, volume 191, Philadelphia, Pa.: The Curtis Publishing Company, →ISSN: ↩

5. 2025 June 25, Ismail Muhammad, “Why Does Every Commercial for A.I. Think You’re a Moron?”, in The New York Times ‎${}^{[1]}$, →ISSN: ↩