adan

noun. Man (as a species)

The usual Sindarin word for “Man” as a species, borrowed from Q. Atan after the Sindar first encountered the men of the west (PE17/18). It often appeared in its plural form Edain “Men” (LotR/1061; PE17/117; WJ/219). Like in Quenya, this word was biased towards considering the houses of the Elf-friends and their descendants as the “true Men”, but the proper term for such men was a Dúnadan “Man of the West”, and strictly speaking Adan applied to all kinds of Men, such as the Rhúnedain “✱Easterlings” (PE17/18) or the Drúedain “Woses” (UT/385). Unlike English, this word has no association with the male gender, and originally meant “the Second”, referring to Men as the second-born children of Eru. For a further discussion of its conceptual development, see the entry for Q. Atan “Man”.