Word.ws English Dictionary

be one's own man

be one's own man verb: to behave independently without the influence of others.

Verb

be one's own man (third-person singular simple present is one's own man, present participle being one's own man, simple past was one's own man, past participle been one's own man)

  1. (idiomatic) To behave independently without the influence of others.

Forms of be one's own man

third-person singular presentis one's own man
present participlebeing one's own man
pastwas one's own man
past participlebeen one's own man

Questions about be one's own man

What does be one's own man mean?
Be one's own man means to behave independently without the influence of others.
What part of speech is be one's own man?
Be one's own man is a verb.
What is the past tense of be one's own man?
The past tense of be one's own man is was one's own man.

Words near be one's own man in the dictionary

  1. Be On the Look Out
  2. be on the lookout
  3. be on the lookouts
  4. be on to
  5. be one thing
  6. be one's own man
  7. be one's own worst enemy
  8. be oneself
  9. be onto
  10. be onto nothing
  11. be onto something

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: be one's own man (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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