green man
1
9.7
- noun
- /ɡrin mæn/
:
hombre verde
- Such figures as the leaf-covered Green Man of the early Britons played essentially the same cultural role: though seemingly more vegetable than animal, they nonetheless embodied the wild.
Examples
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The disgust held me apart from the work until Elizabeth said to me, "I like that green man; it's okay," so I took it up and looked at it with some renewed affection.
Academic text (2001) -
When I carved the large green man out of yew, I spent a whole weekend at a carving class in detailed, quite thoughtless engagement with the leaves, chopping away, overlapping them, dealing with the grain, and finding out what shape each leaf was to have by working on it directly.
Academic text (2001) -
There is another green man that I carved several years ago.
Academic text (2001) -
A loud bang, a loud flash of light, a little Green Man walking single file down a little Rd.
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The letters were made up of vines and branches, and they floated above a green man with leaves for hair and beard.
Fiction book (2000) -
The church had an intricate sculpture of a green man surrounded by twisting vines and leaves.
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In the old garden, a stone green man was hidden amongst the shrubs, representing nature's renewal.
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Artists often draw inspiration from the green man motif to symbolize growth and the beauty of nature.
Surface Forms
Morphology
Although the words 'green' and 'man' are transparent individually, the conventional meaning referring to a specific decorative motif (a face made of leaves symbolizing nature/rebirth) is culturally specific and not predictable from the constituents; a B1 learner would likely interpret it literally (a man who is green) or as a vague nature-related person but would not infer the folkloric architectural motif without prior exposure. The meaning therefore functions as an idiomatic/cultural label rather than a straightforward compositional phrase.
Etymology
The noun green man comes from old stone carvings that show a man's face made of green leaves and branches. These pictures showed 'nature' and 'rebirth', so green man now means a decorative face or figure that stands for the spirit of nature.