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The spelling of woman in English has progressed over the past millennium from wīfmann [9] to wīmmann to wumman, and finally, the modern spelling woman. [10] In Old English, mann had the gender-neutral meaning of ' human ', akin to the Modern ' person ' or ' someone '. The word for ' woman ' was wīf or wīfmann (lit.
The terms womyn and womxn have been criticized for being unnecessary or confusing neologisms, due to the uncommonness of mxn to describe men. [8] [9] [10]The word womyn has been criticized by transgender people [11] [12] due to its usage in trans-exclusionary radical feminist circles which exclude trans women from identifying into the category of "woman", particularly the term womyn-born womyn.
The word comes from Old English hlǣfdige; the first part of the word is a mutated form of hlāf, "loaf, bread", also seen in the corresponding hlāford, "lord".The second part is usually taken to be from the root dig-, "to knead", seen also in dough; the sense development from bread-kneader, or bread-maker, or bread-shaper, to the ordinary meaning, though not clearly to be traced historically ...
Old English had multiple generic nouns for "woman" stretching across all three genders: for example, in addition to the neuter wif and the masculine wifmann listed above, there was also the feminine frowe. [2]: 6 For the gender-neutral nouns for "child", there was the neuter bearn and the neuter cild (compare English child).
Old English wīf (neuter) and wīfmann (masculine), meaning "woman" German Weib (neuter), meaning "woman" (the word is now pejorative and generally replaced with die Frau, originally 'lady', feminine of obsolete der Fro, meaning 'lord') Irish cailín (masculine) meaning "girl", and stail (feminine) meaning "stallion"
This is a list of English words inherited and derived directly from the Old English stage of the language. This list also includes neologisms formed from Old English roots and/or particles in later forms of English, and words borrowed into other languages (e.g. French, Anglo-French, etc.) then borrowed back into English (e.g. bateau, chiffon, gourmet, nordic, etc.).
A reproduction of the ithyphallic Rällinge statue, interpreted as a Viking Age depiction of Freyr *Fraujaz or *Frauwaz (Old High German frô for earlier frôjo, frouwo, Old Saxon frao, frōio, Gothic frauja, Old English frēa, Old Norse freyr), feminine *Frawjōn (OHG frouwa, Old Saxon frūa, Old English frōwe, Goth. *fraujō, Old Norse freyja) is a Common Germanic honorific meaning "lord ...
The grammar of Old English differs greatly from Modern English, predominantly being much more inflected.As a Germanic language, Old English has a morphological system similar to that of the Proto-Germanic reconstruction, retaining many of the inflections thought to have been common in Proto-Indo-European and also including constructions characteristic of the Germanic daughter languages such as ...