Manual - Manuel

These words can be confused by careless writers - and spellcheckers!

• Manuel is essentially not English. It is a (man's) name in other languages (most commonly Spanish). So it is used in English. (It is the name of a Spanish character in the popular television comedy Fawlty Towers.)

• Manual is a native word.
  • As an adjective, it means 'to do with the hands', for example when you catch your hand in a door, you might have a 'manual injury'. A manual labourer is one who earns money through physical work ('with his hands', or in fact with his whole body).
  • As a noun, a manual is 'a handbook' - a basic source of reference for mostly practical matters. (It also has a meaning in Music, to do with organs: it is the keyboard played with the hands, as opposed to the pedal keys, which are played with the feet.)

Etymological note: Manual comes, through French, from the Latin manuālis, an adjective formed from the noun manus, ‘hand’. The name Manuel is the Spanish (or Portuguese) form of the first name found in English as Immanuel or Emmanuel. The name is originally Hebrew (‘immānū ’ēl) and means ‘God is with us’: it is the name of the child whose birth is foretold by the prophet Isaiah (see Isaiah 7.14) and who is identified by Christians with Jesus.