Etymology

many

ma·ny
M3A1N1Y4

Today it means: before a countable noun: A large, indefinite number of. Full definition →

Middle English many ← Old English maniġ ← Proto-West Germanic *manag
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many · determiner, pronoun, noun, adjective1

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*managō
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*managu
  3. Old English · inherited frommanigeo
  4. Middle English · inherited frommanye
  5. Proto-Indo-European · inherited from*méǵh₂-“big, great”
  6. Proto-Indo-European · inherited from*menegʰ-
  7. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*managaz“many; much”
  8. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*manag
  9. Old English · inherited frommaniġ
  10. Middle English · inherited frommany
  11. English todaymany

From Middle English many, mani, moni, from Old English maniġ, moniġ, maneġ (“many”), from Proto-West Germanic *manag, from Proto-Germanic *managaz (“many; much”), from Proto-Indo-European *menegʰ-, *mengʰ- (“many, sufficient”) or Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂- (“big, great”). Cognates Cognate with Scots mony (“many”), Yola many (“many”), North Frisian manag, manig, mäning (“many”), Alemannic German meng (“many”), Central Franconian mannich, männich (“many”), Dutch menig (“many”), German manch (“many, some”), Low German männich, männig (“many”), Luxembourgish muench, munch, munnech (“many”), Danish mangen (“many”), Faroese mangur (“many”), Icelandic margur (“many”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk mang, mange (“many”), Swedish mången (“many”), Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐌽𐌰𐌲𐍃 (manags, “many; much”), French maint (“many”); also Cornish menowgh (“frequent, often”), Irish minic (“frequently, often”), Manx mennick (“frequent, often”), Scottish Gaelic minig (“frequent”), Welsh mynych (“frequent, often”), Belarusian мно́га (mnóha, “many; much”), Bulgarian and Russian мно́го (mnógo, “many; much”), Czech mnohý (“many, numerous”), Macedonian мно́гу (mnógu, “very; many; much”), Polish mnogi (“numerous; plural”), Serbo-Croatian мно̏гӣ, mnȍgī (“many; much, long; large, numerous”), Ukrainian мно́гий (mnóhyj, “many, multiple”). The noun is from Middle English manye, *menye, from Old English manigeo, menigu (“company, multitude, host”), from Proto-West Germanic *managu, *managī, from Proto-Germanic *managō, *managį̄ (“multitude”), from the same root as the determiner. Cognate with Middle Low German menige, menie, menje (“multitude”), Russian много (mnogo), Serbo-Croatian mnogo.

Many · proper noun2

  1. French · borrowed fromMany
  2. English todayMany

Borrowed from French Many or a variant of Maney. The town in Louisiana is named after a Colonel Many.

Words from the same roots

Proto-Indo-European*méǵh₂- all →

much

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.