mantle
/ˈmæn.təl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.62 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A piece of clothing somewhat like an open robe or cloak, especially that worn by Orthodox bishops.
noun
A figurative garment representing authority or status, capable of affording protection.
noun
Anything that covers or conceals something else; a cloak.
noun
The back of a bird together with the folded wings.
noun
A gauzy fabric impregnated with metal nitrates, used in some kinds of gas and oil lamps and lanterns, which forms a rigid but fragile mesh of metal oxides when heated during initial use and then produces white light from the heat of the flame below it. (So called because it is hung above the lamp's flame like a mantel.)
Example Sentences
- "The people of the village all said, "It could be none but the good-natured Dwarfs, who come by night tripping along with their feet covered with long mantles, as light as birds, and industriously perform for mankind their daily work.""
- "At the meeting, she finally assumed the mantle of leadership of the party."
- "The movement strove to put women under the protective mantle of civil rights laws."
- "“The great millennial novelist”—the mantle has been thrust, by Boomers and Gen Xers alike, upon the Irish writer Sally Rooney, whose two carefully observed and gentle comedies of manners both appeared before her twenty-eighth birthday. With this mantle have come prizes and money. Nearly every review has mentioned at least the prizes."
- "But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill."
- "the green mantle of the standing pool"
Etymology
From Middle English mantel, from Old English mæntel, mentel (“sleeveless cloak”), from Proto-West Germanic *mantel; later reinforced by Anglo-Norman mantel, both from Latin mantellum (“covering, cloak”) (French manteau), diminutive of mantum (Spanish manto), probably from Gaulish *mantos, *mantalos (“trodden road”), from Proto-Celtic *mantos, *mantlos, from Proto-Indo-European *menH- (“tread, press together; crumble”). Compare Icelandic möttull. Doublet of manteau.