manner [OE] Latin manus ‘hand’ is ultimately the source of manner, as it is of many other words such as those at *commando and *manage, via the idea of ‘way of handling’. The first sense in English was ‘sort, kind’, followed by ‘usual practice or behaviour’ [ME], and (in the plural) ‘polite or well-bred social behaviour’—the kind of manners that parents try to teach their children, then ‘customary rules of behaviour in society’ [LME]. The phrase as if to the manner born, ‘naturally at ease in a particular job or situation’, derives from a passage in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Since at least the mid 19th century this has also appeared as ‘to the manor born’. See also mansion.