to a man

English

WOTD – 19 November 2023

Etymology

From to (“indicating a limit reached”) + a + man (“adult male human; human regardless of gender or sex”), indicating that something reaches the extent of every individual person.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /tuː‿ə ˈmæn/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /tuː‿ə ˈmæn/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æn

Prepositional phrase

to a man

1. Including every person; without exception; unanimously.
   • 1712 August 10 (Gregorian calendar), [Richard Steele], “WEDNESDAY, July 30, 1712”, in The Spectator, number 444; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume V, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC, page 186:

     There is hardly a man in the world, one would think so ignorant, as not to know that the ordinary quack-doctors, who publish their great abilities in little brown billets, distributed to all who pass by, are to a man impostors and murderers; […]

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • 2011 February 25, “Building a new Libya”, in The Economist‎^[1], London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-09-19:

     To a man, Cyrenaica's new landlords insist they are the launchpad for a countrywide liberation, with Tripoli as the capital, not a separatist movement.

   • 2022 November 21, David Hytner, “England open World Cup in style with Bukayo Saka double in 6–2 rout of Iran”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎^[2], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-08-09:

     [W]ould Iran’s players sing their national anthem, which is seen as a gesture in support of the regime? To a man, the answer was a stony-faced no.

Translations

including every person — see unanimously

See also

• as one man
• every last
• every man Jack
• to the last man

Further reading

• “to a man” under “man, n.¹ (and interj.)”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2023.
• “to a man, phrase”, in Collins English Dictionary; from Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary, 6th edition, Boston, Mass.: Heinle Cengage Learning; Glasgow: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009, →ISBN.
• Colin McIntosh, editor (2013), “to a man, idiom”, in Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 4th edition, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, reproduced in the Cambridge English Dictionary website, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Anagrams

• otaman