eldertongue

Old English · noun

unmann

Part of speech
noun, masculine
Declension
strong consonant stem
Modern English
non-humanbrutethug

Meaning

  1. a non-human

  2. brute, thug

    Swā fela þūsenda engla meahton ēaðe bewerian Crist wiþ þām unmannum, mid heofonlīcum wǣpnum, ġif hē þrōwian nolde selfwilles for ūs.

    That many thousands of angels could have easily defended Christ against those brutes [the men who came to arrest Jesus], with weapons from heaven, if he didn't want to suffer of his own free will for us.

    c. 992, Ælfric, "Palm Sunday: On the Lord's Passion"

Declension

Declension of unmann
SingularPlural
Nominative unmannunmenn
Accusative unmannunmenn
Genitive unmannesunmanna
Dative unmennunmannum

All forms (5)

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *unmann (“non-human, monster”), equivalent to un- (“non-; bad”) + mann (“person”). Cognate with Middle Low German unman (“monster, fiend”), Middle High German unman (“evildoer”), and Old Norse úmannan (“wretch, laughing-stock”). Compare also Old High German unmennisko (“a non-human”) → German Unmensch (“brute”), which is formed similarly.

Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unmann · CC BY-SA 4.0 licence · Attribution