man+(noun) combining form

Jesse Sheidlower jester at PANIX.COM
Sat Oct 1 17:52:09 UTC 2005


On Fri, Sep 30, 2005 at 03:49:21PM -0400, Carl Burnett wrote:
>
> Has anyone run across any others?  Anyone care to speculate whether
> this is the same combining form as in "manservant"?  Are there limits
> to its productivity?

HDAS includes both _ball-bearing_, dating to WWII in the military
(e.g. _ball-bearing WAVE_ = 'a male secretary') and _longhaired_,
cited earliest in Barrere and Leland (1889) in _longhaired chum_
'a girlfriend'.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED



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