Word.ws English Dictionary

the man

the man noun: the oppressive powers that be, including the government and corporations, as coordinated outside of one's control.

Noun

the man

  1. (singular, singular-only) The oppressive powers that be, including the government and corporations, as coordinated outside of one's control.
    • Holonym: the System
    • The man gets you down.
  2. (singular, singular-only) An oppressive or domineering person of authority, usually male; especially, one's boss.
    • Near-synonym: old man
    Synonyms:
    old man
  3. (singular, singular-only) The best man for a job; someone with exceptional skills.
    • You’re the man!
    • Buggin' Out: You the man.
      Mookie: No, you the man.
      Buggin' Out: No, I'm just a struggling Black man trying to keep my dick hard in a cruel and harsh world.1989, Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing

Proper noun capitalized: the Man

the Man

  1. Alternative letter-case form of the man (when construed as a proper noun, naming the one and only).

Examples of the man in a sentence

  • I'm sorry I couldn’t meet you earlier, but I spent all night working for the man.
  • It starts when you're always afraid / Step out of line, the man come and take you away1966 December, Stephen Stills, “For What It's Worth”performed by Buffalo Springfield:
  • “You wanna bring the man down on me or somethin’? […]”1968, Nathan C. Heard, Howard Street, New York: The New American Library, pages 22–23:
  • Left a good job in the city / Workin' for the man every night and day1969, John Fogerty, “Proud Mary”, in Bayou Country, performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival:
  • [Jake Delhomme] has been “The Man” ever since, leading the Panthers to a remarkable eight come-from-behind wins in what Fox describes as Carolina's “outhouse-to-penthouse” season.2004 January 31, George Kimball, “Super Bowl XXXVIII: Rags-to-riches story for Carolina Panthers quarter-back Delhomme”, in The Guardian...

Synonyms of the man

Forms of the man

alternative formthe Man
alternative formda man

Origin of the man

Originally from US English.

Words formed from the man

Questions about the man

What does the man mean?
The man means the oppressive powers that be, including the government and corporations, as coordinated outside of one's control.
How do you use the man in a sentence?
I'm sorry I couldn’t meet you earlier, but I spent all night working for the man.
What part of speech is the man?
The man can be a noun or a proper noun.

Words near the man in the dictionary

  1. the Lord's work
  2. the love of money is the root of all evil
  3. the lower 48
  4. the lunatics have taken over the asylum
  5. The Mall
  6. the man
  7. the man, the myth, the legend
  8. the map is not the territory
  9. The Marra
  10. the Massachusetts of Australia
  11. the math ain't mathing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: the man (page history and authors); the 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-the man.ogg.

Cite this entry: “the man.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/the_man. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.