Etymology of the word WOMAN

[JellySaurus]

No idea who Abraham Piper is, I just like his presentation about where the word 'woman' comes from.

(I'm pretty sure it's correct, because I have read the same in different books over the years.)

https://youtube.com/shorts/SMb-mQ038vc?feature=share

Perfectly correct, 'wif man' is the origin of the word woman. The word has nothing to do with womb etc.

Thanks, I'd always heard wif-man meant wife of man.

It's still interesting though, that if the word man meant any person when the word wifman meant female person, that there's no _man to mean male person today.

Why "man" changed from meaning any person to specifically male person is interesting!

When 'wifman' = female human was used the most common word for male human was 'werman'. The element 'wer' cf. Latin 'vir' = man, male.

And yes, it's the same element as in 'werewolf' = man + wolf

IIRC mid=with, so midwife = with woman. But does that mean

the woman who is with [the labouring woman]

Or

[the woman who is] with the labouring woman

?

I saw this recently and it made so much sense to me, especially that ‘man’ just meant ‘person’ rather than ‘male person’.
We know that the word man is used to just mean person in many instances, in laws, use of words such a mankind etc.
Growing up, it was always told to me like it was sexist, it shouldn’t be just ‘mankind’ etc but I’ve never really thought it was, and having it confirmed this way makes a lot of sense.

There was no Old English word werman - it seems to be a modern invention. They would have used either wer on its own or a variant of waepman (weapon person) to indicate an unambiguously male person.

I thought there was a cur- or cer- prefix meaning male?

re midwife, it means 'with woman' ie person who is with a woman- normally and historically a female person

www.etymonline.com/word/woman

'wifie' in Northern Scotland.

I like 'quine' ('queen'), for a girl, too.

I have to say, I always find it surprising when people don't know that "man" also meant person - it continued to be used that way until quite recently.

I think most people presumed that 'man' was a male default being used to refer to men and women, rather than a genuinely gender neutral term that included both. The former was more recent usage, anyway, if not the original meaning.

www.etymonline.com/word/man

'Specific sense of "adult male of the human race" (distinguished from a woman or boy) is by late Old English (c. 1000); Old English used wer and wif to distinguish the sexes, but wer began to disappear late 13c. and was replaced by man.'

Yes, I think people do presume that. But in large part because that is the reasoning they've been given, if that makes sense? Ideological explanations for words often make that kind of error. and create a kind of biased interpretation.

I did know this but the video was a great explanation of it.
Its true I see the wrong myths as well here and elsewhere.

Another not true but people think it is true is the myth that “Mrs” comes from “Mr’s” as the property of Mister/Master (her husband). 🤪

MrSand, Thank you for clearing away "werman" which I had believed to exist. It sent me to my A/S dictionary, where I made an interesting discovery, that even back then, the male form was used in an exclusionary way, for example "werkin" was used for the folk group, in the manner we might use "mankind", so women were excluded from the term for the group. Which pushes the linguistic bias back, as the invention of werman pushed it forward, and suggested our A/S ancestors were more accepting of women as equals.
I never heard that Mr's represented ownership, but did come across the way that the use of the two abbreviations for Mistress was changed, around the end of the 18th century, so that the child version, Miss, was continued into adulthood for the unmarried, where previously adult women would have been called Mrs, with a distinction in the use of the man's name. Thus Mrs Katherine Brown, on marriage, became Mrs Edward Green, losing her identity. Just as bad as Mr's denoting ownership, but at least still referring to the full title for an adult woman.
As someone required to emulate Dick Emery and correct people "It's Miss, actually," I loathe this change.
I especially loathed it when teaching. "Miss" is not equivalent to "Sir". You can call Charles III "Sir". You couldn't call the Queen "Miss", as many married women teachers are. And are taught in some schools that that is the polite title. I have been surprised to see here feminist posters using "Miss" of teachers. I have had nightmares of childish voices crying "Miss, miss, miss," into the small hours. It dates back to the times when male teachers had degrees and women didn't, and is part of the long history of infantilising adult women.
Sorry for tangent.
And if you have access to an A/S disctionary, there's half a page of interesting "wif" words which are illuminating about the way the writers thought of women.

Mis-spelt. "wercyn", human race, not kin as I wrote. Same meaning.

It dates back to the times when male teachers had degrees and women didn't

I think it dates back even further than that, to the time when women had to give up their jobs when they got married, so all women teachers would have been Miss-es.

and is part of the long history of infantilising adult women.

Can't argue with that.

My mum was a (married) teacher in the 60s. By the convention of the time she should have resigned before she showed 'too much'. Many staff were shocked and uncomfortable that she kept teaching throughout her pregnancy. The Head even asked her if she wasn't embarrassed to be seen by her class. Dm was not embarrassed at all.

Obviously her employment was terminated the day she went into labour with her dc1.

Yes, the teachers being Miss or Sir, it’s a bit of both.

Teachers/governesses in the 18th c were referred to as “Mrs X” as @Treaclemine says. These were all unmarried adult women. Mrs denoted adult woman, not married woman and Miss was for minor girls (the age of going from a minor to your legal majority or adulthood shifted, it wasn’t always 18)

In the 19th c. The convention changed to call all unmarried adult women “Miss X” no matter what age and so teachers/governesses (all being unmarried women as married women were still barred from professional work) were now being called Miss as @JellySaurus says.

But for both the 18th c and 19th c, the reason why women teachers were called Mrs or Miss and the men Sir is because women could not earn degrees and by then male school teachers and tutors usually were degreed as @Treaclemine says.

This brings us to the latter 20th c and 21st c where the majority of women school teachers and governesses also have degrees. What hasn’t happened is the recognition of this status by upgrading women teachers to “madam” which is the female equivalent of sir. Instead, we carry on with the 19th c convention of women teachers being “Miss” and men teachers being “Sir”

Its a kind of everyday sexism. Small but pernicious micro-aggression.

The local grammar school (not boys' grammar, as it insists on its priority of founding) uses "ma'am", bless its cotton socks. It is Mick Jagger's alma mater.

There's an interesting memorial in Fordingbridge parish church for "Mrs. Anne Bulkeley, spinster."
Not at all confusing, when you understand that Mrs. is the abbreviation of Mistress, and that Anne, though unmarried, was an adult. I find it pleasingly dignified.