Man (redirected from be man)

MAN. A human being. This definition includes not only the adult male sex of the human species, but women and children; examples: "of offences against man, some are more immediately against the king, other's more immediately against the subject." Hawk. P. C. book 1, c. 2, s. 1. Offences against the life of man come under the general name of homicide, which in our law signifies the killing of a man by a man." Id. book 1, c. 8, s. 2.
     2. In a more confined sense, man means a person of the male sex; and sometimes it signifies a male of the human species above the age of puberty. Vide Rape. It was considered in the civil or Roman law, that although man and person are synonymous in grammar, they had a different acceptation in law; all persons were men, but all men, for example, slaves, were not persons, but things. Vide Barr. on the Stat. 216, note.