Man and Woman

In English we have the curious situation where 'man' and 'men' are also used to refer to 'men and women'. Over time the term for an adult male dropped out of usage, and the term for both genders was increasingly applied to males.

Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon, is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southern and eastern Scotland between at least the mod-5th century and the mid-12th century.

• Mann or monn primarily meant an 'adult male human' but could also be used for a gender-neutral meaning of 'human', corresponding to Modern English 'person' or 'someone'.
• Wif meant 'female human'. With the suffix 'man' this became wifmann, then wimmann, then to wumman and finally to woman. The meaning of 'wif' narrowed to refer to a married woman - wife.
• Wer meant male human'. It survives in the form 'were' in werewolf.

Subsequent to the Norman Conquest, man began to be used more for 'male human', and by the late 1200s had begun to eclipse the use of 'wer'.

While the generic meaning of 'man' as referring to both genders declined, it is retained in, for example, everyman, mankind and no-man. With social changes in the late 20th century, new gender-neutral terms were coined: police officer, firefighter, sales assistant.