Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A surname.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun versatile United States film actor (born in 1937)
  • noun United States sculptor (1887-1966)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Anglicised from German Hoffmann, also a Jewish (Ashkenazic) surname originally spelled both Hoffman and Hoffmann: status name for a steward on a farm or estate, from German hof(f) ‘manorfarm’, ‘courtyard’ + Mann ‘man’. Originally, this was a status name for a farmer who owned his own land as opposed to holding it by rent or feudal obligation, but the name soon came to denote the manager or steward of a manor farm, in which sense it is extremely frequent throughout central and eastern Europe; also among Jews, since many Jews held managerial positions on non-Jewish estates.

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