mantle

Meanings

Noun

• A piece of clothing somewhat like an open robe or cloak, especially that worn by Orthodox bishops.
• A figurative garment representing authority or status, capable of affording protection.
• Anything that covers or conceals something else; a cloak.
• The body wall of a mollusc, from which the shell is secreted.
• The back of a bird together with the folded wings.
• The zone of hot gases around a flame.
• 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.
• The outer wall and casing of a blast furnace, above the hearth.
• A penstock for a water wheel.
• The cerebral cortex.
• The layer between the Earth's core and crust.
• A fireplace shelf; Alternate spelling of mantel
• A mantling.

Verb

• To cover or conceal (something); to cloak; to disguise.
• To become covered or concealed.
• To spread like a mantle (especially of blood in the face and cheeks when a person flushes).

Origin

• From Middle English mantel, from Old English mæntel, mentel, from Proto-West Germanic *mantil, from Proto-Germanic *mantilaz ("mantle"); later reinforced by Anglo-Norman mantel, from Latin mantēllum ("covering, cloak"), diminutive of mantum (, ), probably from Gaulish *mantos, *mantalos, from Proto-Celtic *mantos, *mantlos, from Proto-Indo-European *menH- ("tread, press together; crumble").