manner

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A way of doing something or the way in which a thing is done or happens. See Synonyms at method.
2. n. A way of acting; bearing or behavior.
3. n. The socially correct way of acting; etiquette.
4. n. The prevailing customs, social conduct, and norms of a specific society, period, or group, especially as the subject of a literary work.
5. n. Practice, style, execution, or method in the arts: This fresco is typical of the painter's early manner.
6. n. Kind; sort: What manner of person is she?
7. n. Kinds; sorts: saw all manner of people at the mall.
8. idiom. in a manner of speaking In a way; so to speak.
9. idiom. to the manner born Accustomed to a position, custom, or lifestyle from or as if from birth.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The way in which an action is performed; method of doing anything; mode of proceeding in any case or situation; mode; way; method.
2. n. Habitual practice; customary mode of acting or proceeding with respect to anything; characteristic way or style, as in art or literature; distinctive method; habit; style: as, one's manner of life; the manner of Titian, or of Dickens.
3. n. Personal bearing or behavior; customary conduct; characteristic way of acting; wonted deportment or demeanor: most commonly in the plural: as, his manner was abrupt; good or bad manners; reformation of manners in a community.
4. n. Specifically plural Good behavior; polite deportment; habitual practice of civility; commendable habits of conduct: as, have you no manners?
5. n. The way in which anything is made or constituted; mode of being or formation; fashion; character; sort; kind: often used with all in a plural sense, equivalent to sorts or kinds: as, all manner of baked meats.
6. n. [The word in this sense is frequently used in old English without of following, in a quasi-adjective use, like kind of in modern English: as, manner folk, kind of people; manner crime, kind of crime, etc.
7. n. [Manner here is sometimes understood as manor (which was formerly also spelled manner), and is often changed to manor in the quotation to make the phrase applicable to locality.] Synonyms Manner, Mode, Method, Way. Manner is the least precise of these words, standing for sort or kind, custom, mode, method, or the like. Mode may mean a fashion, or a form or sort, as a mode of existence, or a single act or an established way, as a mode of disposing of refuse. Method implies a succession of acts tending to an end, as a method of slaughtering an ox or of solving a problem. Way is a very general word, in large popular use for each of the others, as a man's way of building a dam (method), of holding a pen (mode), of staring at strangers (manner).
8. n. Habit, Usage, etc. See custom.
9. n. Manners, Morals, etc. See morality.
10. n. An obsolete form of manor.
11. n. Another form of mainor.

Wiktionary

1. n. Mode of action; way of performing or effecting anything; method; style; form; fashion.
2. n. Characteristic mode of acting, conducting, carrying one's self; bearing; habitual style.
3. n. Customary method of acting; habit.
4. n. Carriage; behavior; deportment; also, becoming behavior; well-bred carriage and address.
5. n. The style of writing or thought of an author; characteristic peculiarity of an artist.
6. n. Certain degree or measure; as, it is in a manner done already.
7. n. Sort; kind; style.
8. n. standards of conduct cultured and product of mind.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Mode of action; way of performing or effecting anything; method; style; form; fashion.
2. n. Characteristic mode of acting, conducting, carrying one's self, or the like; bearing; habitual style.
3. n. Customary method of acting; habit.
4. n. Carriage; behavior; deportment; also, becoming behavior; well-bred carriage and address.
5. n. The style of writing or thought of an author; characteristic peculiarity of an artist.
6. n. Certain degree or measure.
7. n. Sort; kind; style; -- in this application sometimes having the sense of a plural, sorts or kinds.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. how something is done or how it happens
2. n. a kind
3. n. a way of acting or behaving