grammar - In the phrase "man enough", is man an adjective?


I do realize that the phrase "to be man enough" is an idiom. But I wonder what is the grammatical/syntactic role that man plays in it. Is it an uncountable noun? An adjective? An adverb? Or perhaps because the phrase is an idiom, the question makes no sense?



Answer



Consider an alternative sentence:


He is sufficiently manly to achieve his goals.


Here manly is an adjective and sufficiently manly is an adjectival phrase. In your sentence, man enough is a colloquial substitute..........so it is also adjectival.

Because of its colloquial nature, I would only catagorize the phrase and not break it down further.


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