Las manos (del latín: manus) forman parte de las extremidades del cuerpo humano, siendo el cuarto segmento del miembro superior o torácico. Están localizadas en los extremos de los antebrazos, son prensiles y tienen cinco dedos cada una. Abarcan desde la muñeca hasta la yema de los dedos en los seres humanos. Son el principal órgano para la manipulación física del medio. La punta de los dedos contiene algunas de las zonas con más terminaciones nerviosas del cuerpo humano; son la principal fuente de información táctil sobre el entorno, por eso el sentido del tacto se asocia inmediatamente con las manos. Como en los otros órganos pares (ojos, oídos, piernas), cada mano, está controlada por el hemisferio del lado contrario del cuerpo. Siempre hay una dominante sobre la otra, la cual se encargará de actividades como la escritura manual, de esta forma, el individuo podrá ser zurdo, si la predominancia es de la mano izquierda (siniestra) o diestro si es de la derecha (diestra); este es un rasgo personal. En cuanto a tamaño las manos más grandes de la historia fueron las de Robert Pershing Wadlow que midieron 32,4 cm desde su muñeca al dedo corazón.[cita requerida]

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A hand (Latin manus) is a prehensile, multi-fingered organ located at the end of the forearm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs. A few other vertebrates such as the koala (which has two opposable thumbs on each "hand" and fingerprints remarkably similar to human fingerprints) are often described as having "hands" instead of paws on their front limbs. The raccoon is usually described as having "hands" though opposable thumbs are lacking. Fingers contain some of the densest areas of nerve endings on the body, and are the richest source of tactile feedback. They also have the greatest positioning capability of the body, thus the sense of touch is intimately associated with hands. Like other paired organs (eyes, feet, legs) each hand is dominantly controlled by the opposing brain hemisphere, so that handedness—the preferred hand choice for single-handed activities such as writing with a pencil, reflects individual brain functioning. Some evolutionary anatomists use the term hand to refer to the appendage of digits on the forelimb more generally — for example, in the context of whether the three digits of the bird hand involved the same homologous loss of two digits as in the dinosaur hand. The human hand has five fingers and 27 bones, not including the sesamoid bone, the number of which varies between people, 14 of which are the phalanges (proximal, intermediate and distal) of the fingers. The metacarpal bones connect the fingers and the carpal bones of the wrist. Each human hand has five metacarpals and eight carpal bones. Among humans, the hands play an important function in body language and sign language.

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