manners
- 1The customary rules and conventions of polite social behavior.
Court manners in that period demanded elaborate bows and precise forms of address.
Business manners vary enough across countries that visiting executives often study them in advance.
Similaretiquette, protocol, conventions, customs, decorum
Note
A plural with no working singular in this meaning: court manners and business manners are sets of conventions, never one manner among several. Shakespeare's Sonnet 39 (1609) uses with manners to mean within the bounds of propriety. The speaker asks how he can decently praise someone who is "the better part" of himself, since that would amount to praising himself. The same plural-only habit carries over to the sense of good behavior.
- 2Polite behavior that shows consideration and respect for others.
Visitors complimented the boy on his manners without a hint of irony.
Whatever the argument, she never let her manners slip in front of guests.
Similarpoliteness, courtesy, civility, etiquette
Oppositerudeness, impoliteness, discourtesy
Note
Here the word itself carries the praise. To say someone has manners is to say they have good ones, with the adjective dropped. Dorothy Parker's "The Little Old Lady in Lavender Silk" (1936) shows a construction worth knowing: it is manners to issue a statement, meaning it is the polite thing to do. The pattern is it is manners to, followed by a verb, and it is used without an article.
- 3Plural of manner.
Historians described the differing manners in which each empire collected its taxes.
Edith Wharton's novels satirize the manners of New York's upper class.
Note
The ordinary count plural, used when several distinct ways of doing something are in view: the manners in which empires taxed, several manners of transmission. It draws on the "mode of action" and "style" meanings of manner, so it sits naturally before in which or of. Keep it apart from the plural-only word for etiquette, where the plural is the whole word rather than a count of ways.
manners is a form of manner
manner, noun: The way in which something is done or performed. Full entry
- Forms
- mannermanners plural
- Spelling
- manner → manners: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Use it in a sentence
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