manscape

Alternative forms

• man-scape

Etymology

From man +‎ -scape.

Noun

manscape (plural manscapes)

1. A view of a group of people.
   • 1859, Bayard Taylor, A Visit to India, China and Japan in the Year 1853:

     I soon turned to contemplate the more animated manscape at my feet. Seeing a crowd of beggars standing together in dejected attitudes, I cast a handful of cash into the air, in such wise that the coins would fall plump among them, and then dropped behind the parapet of the pagoda.

   • 1909, James Douglas, Adventures in London, page 330:

     The crowd melts, but melts only to flow again next morning into the same gigantic mould of passion. The men are different, but the manscape is the same.

   • 1983 August 20, Penny Landau, “The Reality Around Us: Two Gay Plays”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 6, page 17:

     It is to be hoped that their [the Meridian Gay Theatre's] next effort — the New York premiere of Something More, a "manscape" of gay life in the past 10 years — will match the previous success of Stray Dog Story and Street Theater.

2. A landscape that has been shaped by the human race.
   • 1905, T. P.'s Weekly - Volume 5, page 364:

     At last the manscape gags itself, and a queer, worn, torn, cracked, corncrake voice begins to vibrate in the vast bowl.

   • 1974, David S. Freeman, Russell C. Lewis, Thomas H. Soper, Our Places and Ourselves, page vii:

     And the manscape is our realm, our spatial destiny where we must act and respond, where for our lifetime we must be who we will be.

   • 1977, West Africa, page 1869:

     In 114 pages, he deals with slavery and its effect on the manscape of what he describes as "the most English of the West Indian islands, but at the same time the nearest as the slaves fly, to Africa."

   • 1995, Richard North, Life on a Modern Planet: A Manifesto for Progress, page 207:

     Nearly everywhere is a Manscape now, and we need not mourn the fact. There is still plenty which is beautiful and a solace […]

   • 1996, Herbert Girardet, The Gaia Atlas of Cities: New Directions for Sustainable Urban Living, →ISBN:

     As cities grow they try to claim landscapes for themselves, changing them gradually into "manscapes".

   • 2001, Denis Edwards, Earth Revealing--earth Healing:

     For example, he compares the monumental conquest of Mount Rushmore by Europeans, in which landscape became manscape, with the indigenous Lakota people's desire to honor the Great Spirit, Wakonda […]

3. An image, normally artistic, of the male form.
   • 1998, Scott Symons, Christopher Elson, Dear Reader: Selected Scott Symons, page 103:

     Pierrot is lying in an open loll on bedface, twitching me with bigtoe ... immense beckoner as my captive eye swallows it whole and am unawares into his manscape still at ten feet distance yet touched in a way that nobody has even touched me in my own community d'Angluche.

   • 2002, Richard Labonte, Best Gay Erotica 2002:

     no contemplative staring at the marble-statue manscape I'd downloaded from one of the porno websites I'd found.

Verb

manscape (third-person singular simple present manscapes, present participle manscaping, simple past and past participle manscaped)

1. (rare) To impose a shape on the landscape to suit humans.
   • 1958, New Zealand Railway & Locomotive Society, The New Zealand Railway Observer:

     On the valley floor, wide enough to admit the more pleasing features of manscaping, the Little River meanders.

2. (neologism) To trim or shave a male's hair, typically other than the hair atop and behind his head. The term applies most frequently to facial hair, including that of the eyebrows, ears, and nostrils; somewhat frequently to shoulders and back; less frequently to buttocks and pubes; infrequently to arms and legs.
   • 2007, Jen Lancaster, Bright Lights, Big Ass:

     Is it that hard to manscape? You know, get an electric razor, trim up your shrubbery, blow out your front yard a bit?

   • 2009 September 30, Sara DiRienzo, “The Art of Manscaping”, in College News‎:

     College News presents a working guide of the dos and don’ts of manscaping, taken from suggestions of college students themselves: Dos: […] / – Facial shaving/beard trimming / – […] – Controlling pubic hair / […] Embrace leg hair / Donts: – Excessive chest hair / – Long nose hairs / – Ear hair / – Adventurous shoulder and back hair / – Unibrows / – Wild beards […] / Follow these directions, and you’ll be making sure that the man in your life is properly manscaped.

   • 2009 October 6, Molly Kissler, “How To: Manscape”, in State Press Magazine‎:

     Manscaping, otherwise known as the art of shaving, waxing and cleaning up the superfluous fur on a man […] , is a must in this day and age.

   • 2012, Molly Harper, Nice Girls Don't Bite Their Neighbors, →ISBN:

     “I'm Jamie,” he said, reaching out to shake Ophelia's hand. “Nice to meet you. And I don't manscape. But Gabriel does.”

   • 2014, Mike Baldasarre, A Boy's Basic Guide to Puberty, →ISBN, page 15:

     Many tools can be used to “manscape” including a razor and shaving cream, cordless body trimmers, and even scissors.

   • 2017, Sarina Bowen, Tanya Eby, Man Hands: Volume 1, →ISBN:

     He manscapes, gets manicures, and I'm pretty sure he mansplains with the best of them, but when we're in the same room, the hairs on my arms rise.

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