yeman – Middle English noun declension

Middle English noun forms of yeman

Noun: yeman
Sg.yeman
Pl.yemen

Genitive

Dative

Sample Sentences

Nouns inflected like yeman

seeman, bedeman, lewed man, lege man, Irisshman, myster man, loresman, hire man, chapman, Ducheman, schereman, alderman, domesman, foman, woman, yeman, horsman, herdeman, hirdman, henxman, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)

Etymology

1. First attested in c. 1300 and of uncertain origin; of the etymologies that have been suggested, the following are plausible:
2. * Possibly from Old English *ġēamann, from Proto-West Germanic *gawamann, variant of *gauwjamann, related to Old Frisian gāmann (“villager”), Middle Dutch goyman (“arbitrator”). Liberman's dismissal of the proposed phonological development is unwarranted; compare e.g. ġēac (“cuckoo”) < *gauk.
3. * A contraction of yong man; compare dialectal yeomath (“aftermath”) for a possible parallel.
4. See Liberman for other historic suggestions, though his proposed derivation from Old English *ǣmann, *āmann, from ǣ-, ā- (“after, without”) + mann (“man”) is not only semantically unconvincing, but phonologically improbable given the consistent initial /j/ in this word (forms of yeomath without /j/ can be a post-Middle English development as in dialectal east “yeast”). See: Old English Nouns '*ġēamann'.

Verbs referencing "yeman"

English Nouns yeoman.

Translations