manner

_manner_

Noun.

Plural: manners.

Pronunciation and accent: mænə(r).

Etymology: from Middle English manere, from Old French maniere, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin manuaria, from feminine of Late Latin manuarius (= of the hand), from Latin manus (= hand) + suffix –arius (= -ary). Etymological identity with Spanish manera, Italian maniera and French manière.

1. The quality of an action; the mode or method in which something is done or happens; method of action; a mode of procedure; mode of acting, occurrence; fashion.

To make a deposit in the manner you mention.

Edgar Poe

Upon leaving him on the night of our adventure, he solicited me, in what I thought an urgent manner, to call upon him very early the next morning.

Edgar Poe

There was something in his manner of emphasizing the word "peculiar," which caused me to shudder, without knowing why.

Edgar Poe

She opened her legs wider in a most condescending manner.

Walter… My Secret Life

[He] sometimes thanked her in a manner more earnest than was usual with him.

Mrs. Ann Radcliffe… The Romance of the Forest

-) Particular phrases:

In this manner (formerly on, by this manner): thus.

After this manner (formerly on, by this manner) = thus.

In what manner = how.

In manner that (obsolete): so that.

In like manner: in a similar mode, similarly.

In a manner: in some degree; as it were, in a manner of speaking.

In no manner (adverbial phrase): not at all; nohow. (Cf. Italian: in nessuna maniera, Spanish: de ninguna manera)

By no manner, also no manner (obsolete): not at all; nohow.

In a manner of speaking: so to speak; let’s understand it this manner.

I have, in a manner, exhausted the subjects.

The Lancet

She believed that Ogilvie, also, had been deceived in like manner.

Edith Delano… The Land of Content

They had gone rustling away as if their little dresses were made of autumn-leaves: and they came rustling back, in like manner.

Charles Dickens… David Copperfield

It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest.

Edgar Poe

-) With the preposition of followed by gerund or noun of action:

Mr. Tooke… pointed out both the truth and the manner of this designation…

John Fearn… Anti-Tooke

Thus hopeless are all attempts to find any traces of Highland learning. Nor are their primitive customs and ancient manner of life otherwise than very faintly and uncertainly remembered by the present race.

Samuel Johnson… Western Isles of Scotland

Her modest manner of speech.

Samuel Richardson… Clarissa

2. A class of individuals or objects distinguished by common attributes; a species or kind; --it is archaic, except in the phrase all manner of (rather ungrammatical) = all kinds of.

What manner of people these maskers are. 

Edgar Poe

-) Particular constructions:

a. In plural construction, the noun manner being in singular and qualified by all, many, those, these, or a numeral:

Two manner of built ships: the one with a flush deck […].

William Monson… Naval Tracts

Their chief tool, and one used for all manner of purposes, from the felling of a tree to the paring of a cucumber, is the dah.

Howard Malcom (Travels in south-eastern Asia, 1839)

b. No (or any) manner of…: used periphrastically for ‘no, any (person or thing) whatever’.  

I think there can be no manner of doubt.

Edgar Poe

I have no manner of apprehension of the event of this meeting.

Samuel Richardson… Clarissa

 3. a. The manner of: the character, state, disposition, condition or quality of; --it is obsolete, except in the phrase in the manner of (something) = after the fashion of, with the same aspect as, with the same condition as. (Cf. Spanish: a manera de… French: en manière de, par manière de…)

[The boat was built] for the whaling service, and was fitted, as I have since had reason to believe, with air-boxes, in the manner of some life-boats used on the coast of Wales.

Edgar Poe… The Narrative…

Beyond this room there were three others, reaching the length of the house, to which you passed through three doors, opposite to each other, in the manner of a vista.

J. Swift… Gulliver’s Travels

When touched, these insects counterfeit death; but they do not contract their legs, in the manner of the Dermestes, and some other Beetles. 

William Bingley… Animal Biography

His talk was not in the manner of working-men, and the conversation was discursive enough to display his intelligence.

Gilbert Holland… Arthur Bonnicastle

3. Hence, in plural: a. Obsolete: a person’s habitual conduct. b. Habitual conduct of a nation, tribe, or people.

There is no peculiarity which more strongly discriminates the manners of the Greeks and Romans from those of modern times, than that small degree of attention and respect…

Thomas Warton… English Poetry

There is wonderfully little difference between the woman you have for five shillings, and the one you pay five pounds, excepting in the silk, linen, and manners.

Walter… My Secret Life

I had had the cleanest, nicest women, but they were servants, with the dress and manners of servants.

Walter… My Secret Life

-) Good manners: good or polite deportment; polite behavior.

4. Only literary: a. A person’s habitual conduct; customary mode of acting; custom. b. Attitude, gesture, and utterance of a speaker.

He was civil, even cordial in his manner, but just then, I was more intent on observing the arrangements of the dwelling which had so much interested me, than the personal appearance of the tenant.

Edgar Poe

I smiled […]. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search - search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. […] I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things.

Edgar Poe

He continued, after a pause, with the most expressive energy and solemnity of manner.

Edgar Poe

With a singular alteration of voice and manner.

Edgar Poe

I supposed so, but felt convinced from mother's manner that I had asked a question which embarrassed her.

Walter… My Secret Life

"Don't come near me, don't be unkind, let me alone," she says. Her manner was so commanding, that I let her go to the kitchen without following her. Shortly Eliza and then my mother came home.

Walter… My Secret Life

I watched them going along with their steady step; who could have known from their look and manner, that both had just been fucked !

Walter… My Secret Life

5. Archaic and in plural: gestures of respect; forms of politeness by which someone shows good manners in interpersonal communication; as, to do or make one's manners.

6. a. Method or style of a work. b. Method or style of a writer, painter, etc.

The terms, and the general manner of the narration.

Edgar Poe

[…] after the manner of Egyptian architecture.

Edgar Poe

Words derived from the noun MANNER: mannerism, mannered, mannerist, manneristic, manneristical, mannerize, mannerless, mannerliness, mannerly (adv. adj.), unmannerly (adv. adj.), unmannered, unmanneredly, unmannerliness.