MANY AN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does many an mean? 

• MANY AN (adjective)
  The adjective MANY AN has 1 sense:

1. each of a large indefinite number

  Familiarity information: MANY AN used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MANY AN (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Each of a large indefinite number

Synonyms:

many a; many an; many another

Context example:

many another day will come

Similar:

many (a quantifier that can be used with count nouns and is often preceded by 'as' or 'too' or 'so' or 'that'; amounting to a large but indefinite number)

 Context examples 

Many and many an hour I sit thus; but, of all those times, three times come the freshest on my mind.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I have passed many an afternoon very agreeably in these conversations.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But alas! there was one authority which was higher even than that of the referee, and we were destined to an experience which was the prelude, and sometimes the conclusion, also, of many an old-time fight.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She went, however, and they sauntered about together many an half-hour in Mrs. Grant's shrubbery, the weather being unusually mild for the time of year, and venturing sometimes even to sit down on one of the benches now comparatively unsheltered, remaining there perhaps till, in the midst of some tender ejaculation of Fanny's on the sweets of so protracted an autumn, they were forced, by the sudden swell of a cold gust shaking down the last few yellow leaves about them, to jump up and walk for warmth.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I had many a broken sleep inside the Yarmouth mail, and many an incoherent dream of all these things.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was said that many and many an archer coming from the wars had been served with wine with simples in it, until he slept, and had then been stripped of all by this Gourval.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The aspect was so favourable that even without a fire it was habitable in many an early spring and late autumn morning to such a willing mind as Fanny's; and while there was a gleam of sunshine she hoped not to be driven from it entirely, even when winter came.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

His identity had already been noised abroad, and many an elderly connoisseur plucked his long net-purse out of his fob, in order to put a few guineas upon the man who would represent the school of the past against the present.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Yet there remained so many good names that Chandos and Felton, to whom the selection had been referred, had many an earnest consultation, in which every feat of arms and failure or success of each candidate was weighed and balanced against the rival claims of his companions.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)