manliness

From Middle English manlynes, manlynesse, equivalent to manly +‎ -ness.

manliness (usually uncountable, plural manlinesses)

1. The quality of being manly; the set of qualities, traits and abilities considered appropriate to men (as opposed to women or children); similarity to a man.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book V, Canto Eight, Stanza 1,

     Nought under Heaven so strongly doth allure

     The Sense of Man, and all his Mind possess,

     As Beauty’s lovely Bait, that doth procure

     Great Warriors oft their Rigour to repress;

     And mighty Hands forget their Manliness,

   • 1770, Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, lines 379-384,

     With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,

     And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose;

     And kissed her thoughtless babes with many a tear,

     And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear;

     Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief

     In all the silent manliness of grief.

   • 1841, Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, Chapter 66,

     ‘He he!’ simpered Brass, who, in his deep debasement, really seemed to have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her any spark of manliness he might have possessed.

   • 1927, Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, Chapter 1,

     […] there was in all their minds a mute questioning of deference and chivalry, of the Bank of England and the Indian Empire, of ringed fingers and lace, though to them all there was something in this of the essence of beauty, which called out the manliness in their girlish hearts, and made them, as they sat at table beneath their mother's eyes, honour her strange severity […]

   • 1958, Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, London: William Heinemann, Chapter 4,

     Yam stood for manliness, and he who could feed his family on yams from one harvest to another was a very great man indeed.

2. (euphemistic, rare) Male genitals.
   • 2013, Doug Speirs, “Why you shouldn’t call me Mr. Fix It,” Winnipeg Free Press, 28 May, 2013,

     Dressed only in flip-flops and a fuzzy blue bathrobe, which would be long enough on the mayor of Munchkin Land but on me is literally indecent, I attack the mower in a yanking frenzy, flailing around until the dramatic conclusion, wherein the mower refuses to start even though it is confronted by the full extent of my manliness because my too-short robe has flapped open in a cloud of flying sweat and hurled profanity.

• (the quality of being manly): manfulness, mannishness, maleness
• (male genitals): manhood

• unmanliness
• womanliness