man among men

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Noun

man among men (plural men among men)

1. (idiomatic) A man who is accepted on the same terms, and as having the same worth, as other men in society.
   • 1892, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XII, in The American Claimant, New York, N.Y.: Charles L[uther] Webster & Co., →OCLC, page 128:

     I have accomplished my dearest wish, I am a man among men, on an equal footing with Tom, Dick and Harry, and yet it isn't just exactly what I thought it was going to be.

   • 1913, Joseph A. Altsheler, chapter 5, in The Texan Scouts:

     The boy was on terms of perfect equality with Obed and the Panther. They treated him as a man among men.

   • 2001 June 24, Gerald Clarke, “The Double Life of an Aids Victim”, in Time, retrieved 14 July 2014:

     Willson transformed Roy Fitzgerald into Rock Hudson and secured him an apprenticeship. . . . [H]e was able to establish his film personality: steady, likable, a man among men.

2. (idiomatic) A superior or remarkable man who stands out from other men; a leader or exemplar for other men.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC, lines 283–285:

     And be thy ſelf Man among men on Earth, / Made fleſh, when time ſhall be, of Virgin ſeed, / By wondrous birth: […]

   • 1890, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Bait on the Hook”, in The Firm of Girdlestone: A Romance of the Unromantic, London: Chatto & Windus, , →OCLC, page 335:

     To her distorted fancy he was a man among men, a hero, all that was admirable and magnificent.

   • 1900, John Fox Jr., chapter 7, in Crittenden: A Kentucky Story of Love and War:

     At the head of it rode two men—one with a quiet mesmeric power that bred perfect trust at sight, the other with a kindling power of enthusiasm, and a passionate energy, mental, physical, emotional, that was tireless; each a man among men, and both together an ideal leader for the thousand Americans at their heels.

   • 1916, Gilbert Parker, chapter 26, in The World For Sale:

     [H]e was so much a man among men, a giant, with a great, lumbering mind, slow to conceive, but moving in a large, impressive way when once conception came.

   • 1997, Harriet Rubin, The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women, →ISBN:

     A prince is a man among men, a canny fighter, a steely sovereign who takes what he wants out of life.

Usage notes

• Almost always preceded by the article a.
• This term is a contranym, designating, in one sense, an unexceptional man, and, in another sense, an exceptional man.

See also

• man of the people
• man's man