Like most languages, Urdu has a rich and complex history in terms of its establishmentor more accurately developmentas a formal literary language. In the course of discussing the history of Urdu-language lexicons, scholars have mostly focused on issues related to gender, pronunciation, spelling, and plural forms. These are surely important features of the Urdu language but the usage of specific words and their compatibility with contemporary topics are also crucial to the study of the languages development and standardization. In this article, I trace the word mard(man) across several genres and periods, paying close attention to what it reveals about how difficult it is to address a number of important contemporary topics in Urdu.