男
nán
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Male, of men and boys: it goes before a noun to mark the male one. 男人 is 'a man', 男生 'a boy, a male student', 男朋友 'boyfriend'. On its own it marks things for men, on toilet doors and on forms; its opposite is 女.
Nam, thuộc về đàn ông và con trai; đứng trước danh từ để chỉ người nam. 男人 là “đàn ông”, 男生 là “con trai, nam sinh”, 男朋友 là “bạn trai”. Đứng một mình, nó được ghi trên cửa nhà vệ sinh hay ở mục giới tính trong tờ khai; trái nghĩa là 女.
AdjectiveRegister: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 064 (2026-11-14). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “nam” (nam-2). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “男” mean?
Male, of men and boys: it goes before a noun to mark the male one. 男人 is 'a man', 男生 'a boy, a male student', 男朋友 'boyfriend'. On its own it marks things for men, on toilet doors and on forms; its opposite is 女.
Is “男” formal or informal?
男 is generally neutral.