wild man
15
7.5
- noun
- /waɪld mæn/
- Offensive
:
hombre salvaje
- The villagers whispered stories about a wild man who lived in the forest and scared anyone who dared approach.
Examples
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Deep down, he's a wild man.
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He's a wild man, that's why.
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Look, I am nothing like the wild man I used to be.
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You are a wild man.
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You were just, like, dancing like a wild man.
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But you seem like such a wild man, Carl.
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Yet for all his innate cleverness, child Harold is a bit of a wild man.
Academic text (2011) -
Then he called in Jeb Kroger, who was the nearest thing to a wild man the Company had now.
Fiction book (1991) -
How would you like to be Texas Jack Butler, star cowboy, bronco buster and all-around wild man of the West?
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In Tono Monogatari, a collection of folk tales from Japan's Iwate Prefecture, a wild man with golden eyes struck terror in the hearts of the local people.
Academic text (2005)
Synonyms
4
8.8
A person who lives alone in the wild away from towns
A man who has lived without contact with other people since childhood
How Wild
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently composed from 'wild' (untamed, not domesticated or socialized) modifying 'man' (adult male), following a basic adjective + noun pattern. This straightforward compositional relation is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily infer the intended sense.
Etymology
The term wild man may come from old stories and pictures of a man living alone in the forest, covered in hair and acting like an animal. People called that man 'wild', so today wild man means 'a man who is not socialized and behaves in an untamed way'.