mantle

MAN-tuhl/ˈmæn.təl/

Pluralmantles

Verbmantles, mantling, mantled

Often confused with mantel

19 meanings of mantle

Practice

1
authoritynounfigurativelycountable
A symbolic cloak standing for a position of authority or status, one that can also offer protection.
When the founder retired, his daughter took up the mantle of running the family firm.
The ruling brought part-time workers under the protective mantle of federal labor law.
Similarrole
Note
Usually found in a few set phrases. A person assumes, takes up or inherits the mantle of leadership; a title can be thrust upon someone, as "the great millennial novelist" was upon Sally Rooney; and laws spread a protective mantle over the people they shelter. The garment picture stays alive, since a mantle is always something put on or handed on.
2
earth layernouncountable
The layer of Earth's interior that lies between the core and the crust.
No drill has yet broken through the crust into the mantle.
Plumes of hot rock rising through the mantle are thought to feed volcanoes far from any plate boundary.
Note
Geologists treat the mantle as solid rock hot enough to creep very slowly, and that slow flow helps move the plates of the crust above it. The relationship runs both ways: the crust, a mere one percent of Earth's volume, is made of lighter material that melted out of the mantle beneath it.
3
robenouncountable
An open garment resembling a robe or cloak, especially the one worn by bishops of the Orthodox Church.
The bishop entered the cathedral in a purple mantle with a long train.
She drew a velvet mantle around her shoulders before stepping out into the cold.
Similarcloak, cape, robe, wrap
Note
Every other use of the word grows from this garment. Old English had mæntel, a sleeveless cloak, later reinforced by Anglo-Norman mantel; both go back to Latin mantellum, "covering, cloak", which also gave French its manteau. The figurative senses, from the cloak of authority to the layers of rock and brain tissue, all keep the picture of something laid over a body.
4
covering layernounfigurativelycountable
Anything that covers or hides something else, as a cloak covers the body.
By morning a thick mantle of snow lay over the whole valley.
The old millpond had vanished under a green mantle of algae.
Similarblanket, layer, covering, cloak, shroud
Note
A literary word for a covering layer, usually built as a mantle of something: snow, algae, darkness. Shakespeare uses it twice over, dressing the dawn in Hamlet as "the morn, in russet mantle clad" and giving King Lear "the green mantle of the standing pool", the scum on still water. Plain prose would say layer or blanket.
5
fireplace shelfnoun
Alternative spelling of mantel.
The brass clock on the mantle chimed midnight.
She set two tall candlesticks on the mantle above the fireplace.
Note
For the shelf above a fireplace the main spelling is mantel, with -el; mantle is the variant, so a clock on the mantle is still a clock on a shelf, not on a cloak. The two spellings cross again in climbing, where pushing down on a ledge to rise onto it is a mantel, and the climbing verb turns up spelled mantle.
6
cover oververbtransitive
To cover or hide something, as if wrapping it in a cloak.
Thick smoke from the fires mantled the valley for days.
Forecasters expect fresh snow to mantle the peaks by morning.
Similarcover, cloak, shroud, blanket, envelop
Oppositeuncover, reveal
7
lamp meshnouncountable
A gauzy fabric soaked in metal nitrates that, once heated, becomes a rigid but fragile oxide mesh glowing white above the flame of certain gas or oil lamps and lanterns.
Once it has been burned in, the mantle is so brittle that one bump can shatter it.
Old streetlamps in the district still use gas mantles that glow a soft white.
Note
Usually called a gas mantle, and named for its place in the lamp: it hangs above the flame the way a mantel hangs above a fire. The fabric has to be burned in before first use, turning into a mesh of metal oxides that glows white, and from then on it is so brittle that a knock can shatter it.
8
shellfish bodynouncountable
The body wall of a mollusk, which secretes the animal's shell.
A pearl forms when the oyster's mantle coats an irritant with layer after layer of nacre.
Researchers measured each squid's mantle length to compare growth between the two populations.
Note
Malacologists divide a mollusk's body into two working parts, a muscular foot and a shell-secreting mantle. The mantle's edge lays down new shell as the animal grows, and in oysters it coats an irritant to make a pearl. In squid, which carry no outer shell, the mantle is the body tube itself, which is why researchers record mantle length as a standard measurement.
9
climb ontoverbintransitive
To climb over something or up onto it.
The climber mantled onto the narrow ledge and paused to chalk her hands.
In the game, players can mantle over low walls instead of walking around them.
Similarclimb, clamber, scramble
10
spread (blush)verbintransitive
To spread out like a cloak, used especially of blood rising into the face and cheeks when someone flushes.
When his boss praised him at the meeting, Tom felt a warm flush mantle in his cheeks.
Her face mantled with color when the judge called her name.
Similarflush, redden, blush
Oppositepale, blanch
Note
Novelists use the verb for a blush, and the subject can be either the blood or the face: D. H. Lawrence, in Sons and Lovers (1913), writes "the blood still mantled below her ears", while Edgar Rice Burroughs has a face "mantling with the flush of shame". The spreading need not be blood; an 1847 magazine has hot cream that mantled over coffee.

11
cover oververbintransitive
To become covered over or hidden from view.
By late summer the still pond had mantled over with a thick green scum.
Snow fell all night, and by dawn the hills had begun to mantle in white.
12
bird's backnouncountable
In birds, the back and folded wings considered together as one area of plumage.
The adult gull has a slate-gray mantle and pure white underparts.
Juveniles can be told apart by the brown speckling on their mantles.
Note
Birders use the mantle as a field mark, above all in gulls, where the exact shade of gray across the back and folded wings helps tell one species from another. Because the term takes in the folded wings as well as the back, it names the block of color a perched bird shows from above rather than a single patch of feathers.
13
hot gas (flame)nouncountable
The region of hot gases surrounding a flame.
The burner's flame was wrapped in a faint, shimmering mantle of hot gas.
Hold the wire in the outer mantle of the flame and watch its color change.
14
coat of armsnouncountable
In heraldry, a mantling: the stylized cloth shown hanging from the helmet and framing the shield of a coat of arms.
The family's arms show a red and silver mantle flowing from the helm on either side of the shield.
On the older carvings the mantles are cut into ragged, leaflike strips.
Note
Heraldry's mantle began as a cloth cover worn over the helmet, and on a coat of arms it flows from the helm on either side of the shield, framing it. Artists often cut it into ragged, leaflike strips, and its colors usually repeat the main color and metal of the arms. The fuller heraldic term is mantling.
15
cover preyverbintransitive
In falconry, of a bird of prey, to stretch out its wings over food in order to hide it.
The young falcon mantled over the quail, hiding it from the other birds.
Young hawks mantle over their food when the falconer comes too close.
Note
Falconers read this mantling as possessiveness. The bird hunches and spreads its wings like a cloak over the kill to hide it from rivals, and the falconer counts as a rival: young hawks do it when the handler comes too close. A hawk that mantles over its food is guarding, not resting, and is best given room.
16
wing stretchverbintransitive
In falconry, of a bird of prey, to stretch a wing and the leg on the same side out to one side of the body.
After a long rest on the perch, the falcon mantled, easing its left wing and leg out together.
Our hawk likes to mantle in the morning sun, one wing and one leg stretched out to the side.
Note
The other mantling a falconer sees is a stretch, not a guard: the wing and the leg on one side ease out together, often after a long rest on the perch. No food is involved, and that is how it is told from mantling over a kill, which uses the same word for a hunched, possessive posture.
17
furnace wallnouncountable
The part of a blast furnace above the hearth, consisting of its outer wall and casing.
Cracks in the furnace mantle let hot gas escape just above the hearth.
Workers relined the mantle of the old blast furnace during the summer shutdown.
18
brain layernouncountable
In anatomy, the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain's cerebrum.
In mammals the cerebral mantle has grown so large that it folds over much of the rest of the brain.
The tumor had spread through the mantle into the white matter beneath.
Similarcortex
Note
Anatomy keeps the cloak picture here: the cortex is a thin sheet of gray matter draped over the deeper parts of the brain. Anatomists also call it the pallium, Latin for "cloak". In clinical writing cerebral cortex is the familiar term; mantle usually appears in the phrase cerebral mantle, where the image of a covering is the point.
19
water channelnouncountable
A penstock for a water wheel: the sluice or channel that carries water to the wheel.
The miller opened the gate, and water rushed down the mantle onto the wheel.
A wooden mantle carried water from the millpond to the top of the wheel.
Similarpenstock, sluice, flume

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of mantle apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

From Middle English mantel, from Old English mæntel ("sleeveless cloak"), later reinforced by Anglo-Norman mantel; both come from Latin mantellum ("covering, cloak"), a diminutive of mantum, probably from Gaulish *mantos ("trodden road"). Compare French manteau and Spanish manto; it is a doublet of manteau.