Manhattan
Language: English
Part of speech: name
Pronunciation: ipa: /mænˈhæt.ən/
ipa: [mænˈhætn̩]
ipa: [mænˈhæʔn̩]
enpr: mənhătən
ipa: /mənˈhæt.ən/
ipa: [mn̩ˈhætn̩]
ipa: [mn̩ˈhæʔɪ̃n̩]
ipa: [mn̩ˈhæʔn̩]
Forms: form: manhattan
Etymology: From the earlier form Manna-hata recorded by Dutch travelers and settlers, from its name in Unami, the local Algonquian language. That name is usually taken to be a compound of Unami mënatay (“island”) or Munsee munahan (compare Abenaki manahan) and another element.
Based on a report by Anthony Heckewelder that the name Manhattan derives from the wooded area whose trees were suitable for making bows, Goddard explains the early forms Manna-hatta(n) and Mannahachtink as spellings of manaháhtaan "place for gathering the wood to make bows" and a related locative form manaháhteenk. compound of Munsee manah- (gather) + -aht (bow) + -aan (place).
Senses: glosses: An indigenous people of North America who lived in present day New York State.
glosses: A borough of New York City, New York, United States, mainly on Manhattan Island, coterminous with New York County; in full, Borough of Manhattan.
examples: text: Lo, body and soul—this land, / My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships, / The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light, Ohio’s shores and flashing Missouri, / And ever the far-spreading prairies cover’d with grass and corn.
ref: 1865, Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, in Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and other poems:
text: Adam Gopnik has, by many accounts, including his own, a lovely life. A longtime staff writer for the New Yorker and bestselling author, Gopnik lives in Manhattan with his wife, Martha, a film-maker, and their two children, and he moves in the kind of circles that allow him to drop casual lines into conversation such as: “As John Updike once said to me …”, although he has the nervy Jewish self-consciousness to follow that with “… if you’ll forgive the namedrop.”
ref: 2017 December 8, Hadley Freeman, “Adam Gopnik: ‘You’re waltzing along and suddenly you’re portrayed as a monster of privilege’”, in The Guardian:
glosses: An island of New York, United States; in full, Manhattan Island.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
A ghost town in Larimer County, Colorado, United States.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
An unincorporated community in Manatee County, Florida, United States.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
A township in Will County, Illinois, United States.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
A village in Will County, Illinois, United States.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
An unincorporated community in Putnam County, Indiana, United States.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
A city, the county seat of Riley County, Kansas, United States.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
A town in Gallatin County, Montana, United States.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
An unincorporated community in Nye County, Nevada, United States.
Derived terms: Borough of Manhattan
Manhattan clam chowder
Manhattanese
Manhattan Island
Manhattanism
Manhattanite
Manhattanization
Manhattanize