Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.9304

c10.9304

The quotations will show how the Portuguese converted man into mão, of which the English made maune, and so (probably by the influence of the old English word *maund*)* our present form, which occurs as early as 1611. Some of the older travellers, like Linschoten, misled by the Portuguese *mão*, identified it with the word for ‘hand’ in that language, and so rendered it.