man-madeadj.n.
/ˌmanˈmeɪd/, U.S. /ˈˌmænˈˌmeɪd/ A. adj.† 2. Of a church minister: appointed by humans as opposed to God. Obsolete.In quot. a1742 as men-made.
1.
a. Made or caused by human beings (as opposed to occurring or being made naturally); arising from human activity; artificial. Also figurative. rare before 19th cent.
ΚΠ
1615 P. Gordon First Pt. Famous Hist. Bruce i. xii On eurie hand a streame of blood forth floes, That o're their Man-made bankes to swell begin.
1845 P. J. Bailey Festus (ed. 2) 382 Man-made gods.
1852 C. W. Hoskyns Talpa 46 A man-made barrier of stakes and ‘witherings’.
1886 E. B. Foote Radical Remedy in Social Sci. v. 89 They prefer to break the man-made law against contraceptics rather than the natural law against abortion.
1921 W. de la Mare Mem. Midget xxxiii. 237 There was nothing man-made in Fanny; and if there are women-shaped mermaids I know what looks will be seen in their faces.
1939 G. B. Shaw In Good King Charles's Golden Days I. 29 I tell you that from the moment you allow this manmade monster called a Church to enter your mind your inner light is like an extinguished candle.
1948 Sci. News 7 86 When..the country is small and the civilisation old, one finds that the landscape is eventually almost entirely man-made.
1955 Times (Suppl.) p. ii/1 The first man-made forest of such a size to be used for large-scale paper-making.
1982 J. Campbell Grammatical Man iv. xxi. 262 Some seven hundred schemes for manmade languages have been launched at one time or another.
1994 Independent on Sunday 20 Feb. 4/7 Emissions of man-made carbon dioxide.
b. spec. Of a fibre: manufactured from regenerated or synthetic polymer. Of a fabric: made or consisting of such fibre.
ΘΚΠ
the world > textiles and clothing > textiles > man-made textiles > [adjective]
man-made1950
the world > textiles and clothing > textiles > textile fabric or an article of textile fabric > textile fabric > textile fabric made from specific material > made from man-made fibres > [adjective]
man-made1950
1950 R. W. Moncrieff (title) Man-made fibres.
1955 Times 5 July 16/3 Man-made fibres, by which I mean those made by the viscose and acetate processes and the various synthetic fibres.
1966 McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. (rev. ed.) V. 242/1 Rayon is a man-made fibre but not a synthetic fiber. Nylon is a synthetic fiber.
1969 D. C. Hague Managerial Econ. ii. iv. 90 A large proportion of output in a modern economy is accounted for by..large firms. In the United Kingdom, this happens in the..manmade fibre industries.
1974 Country Life 3–10 Jan. 54/2 Coats and dresses in ultrasuede, a man-made, washable material.
1990 Littlewood's Catal. Spring–Summer 977 (caption) A de-luxe booted skate with soft man-made uppers.
ΘΚΠ
the world > existence and causation > creation > [adjective] > created or produced > contrived, artificial, or put together
positivec1385
artificial?c1425
craftlya1492
wroughta1500
preparated1569
made1580
elaborate1583
elaborate1592
elaborated1596
handmade1603
arted1606
factitiousa1624
made-up1677
fictitious1686
man-madea1718
got-up1793
gotten-up1796
canned1878
artefact1909
prefabricated1935
a1718 W. Penn Life in Wks. (1726) I. 170 What I meant by Clergy, viz. A Man-made and Mercenary Ministry.
a1742 T. Story Jrnl. of Life (1747) 263 And though it doth not appear that the Lord ever commanded those Men-made ministers, yet they run.
B. n.
A man-made fibre or fabric.
ΘΚΠ
the world > textiles and clothing > textiles > man-made textiles > [noun] > synthetic
synthetic1934
man-made1968
1968 Daily Tel. 4 Nov. 2/1 Man-mades now have a quarter of the total world fibre output.
1985 Times 16 July 9 There are even revivals in slippery man-mades of..psychedelic print.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2000; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.1615