Talk:made man

Slang Connotation

Isn't there a slang version of this word?

sense 2 (slang)

I removed the following part of the definition. Can anyone confirm it (and reinsert it)? RJFJR 16:22, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

"and has carried out at least one murder under a Mafia contract"

Tea room discussion

Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.

Does anyone know this as a term for a successful person (similar to saying a self made man)?

I was listening to something on Mark Twain and when describing the book Pudding Head Wilson, at the end Wilson is a great success, he's a made man, the people love him; but the book's actual title is the Tragedy of Pudding Head Wilson, because he loses his identity in his success. We don't have this sense, but I don't know how common it is. RJFJR 02:22, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

See have it made. Apparently goes back to Elizabethan times. "a made man" used in Dr. Faustus and some editions of Loves Labour's Lost, but not good brief exemplars of meaning. DCDuring TALK 03:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Poe and Whitman to the rescue:

• 1840 — Edgar Allan Poe, The Business Man

  I consider myself, therefore, a made man, and am bargaining for a country seat on the Hudson.

The sentence is the conclusion of the story, and the final two paragraphs provide ample context of the circumstances that lead the charatcer to make this statement.

• 1855-1891 [1854] — Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Book XX, "A Boston Ballad"

  Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan—you are a made man from this day

But perhaps the best quote for context is from Butler:

• 1872 — Samuel Butler, Erewhon, chapter 1

  I had no money, but if I could only find workable country, I might stock it with borrowed capital, and consider myself a made man.

There is also this quote by Dickens, but it could be considered anti-Semitic, and so might not be the best choice for an example quote under the definition:

• 1841 — Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, chapter 21

  Oh you lucky dog! He's richer than any Jew alive; you're a made man.

--EncycloPetey 01:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Does the tag (dated slang) belong on the first or second sense? RJFJR 19:33, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd have thought that the Victorian non-Mafia sense is more likely dated or archaic (?) than the Mafia sense, but neither seems truly dated to me. DCDuring TALK 20:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)