manslaughter

The word 'manslaughter' is a compound formed from two native English elements. 'Man', from Old English, originally meant a human being of either sex, while 'slaughter', borrowed from Old Norse, initially referred specifically to the butchering of animals. By the late Middle English period, 'slaughter' had broadened to mean violent killing more generally. The compound 'manslaughter' thus literally means 'the killing of a human', and it entered the legal lexicon to distinguish unlawful homicide from the more specific, intentional crime of murder, focusing on the act of killing a person without malice aforethought.

Structure: man (human being) + slaughter (killing) - man: From Old English 'mann', meaning 'person, human being'. Its functional role is to specify the object of the action. - slaughter: From Old Norse 'slátr', meaning 'butcher's meat', later evolving to mean 'the killing of animals for food' and then 'violent killing, carnage'. Its functional role is to denote the core action of killing.