mantle

name

1. A surname.

noun

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.

1. A piece of clothing somewhat like an open robe or cloak, especially that worn by Orthodox bishops.
2. A figurative garment representing authority or status, capable of affording protection.

   “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.”

3. Anything that covers or conceals something else; a cloak.

   “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”

4. The body wall of a mollusc, from which the shell is secreted.

   “He grasps the female from slightly below about the mid-mantle region and positions himself so his arms are close to the opening of her mantle.”

   “Molluscan bodies are broadly divided into two parts: a muscular foot and a shell-secreting mantle.”

5. The back of a bird together with the folded wings.
6. The zone of hot gases around a flame.
7. 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.)
8. The outer wall and casing of a blast furnace, above the hearth.
9. A penstock for a water wheel.
10. The cerebral cortex.
11. The layer between Earth's core and crust.

    “The crust (a mere 1% of the Earth's volume) is made of lighter melt products from the mantle.”

12. Any similar layer in an exoplanet.
13. Alternative spelling of mantel (“shelf above fireplace”).
14. A mantling.

verb

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.

1. To cover or conceal (something); to cloak; to disguise.

   “As the morning steals upon the night, Melting the darkness; so their rising senses Begin to chace the ign'rant fumes, that mantle Their clearer reason.”

   “I left them I' th' filthy mantled pool beyond your cell, There dancing up to th' chins.”

2. To become covered or concealed.
3. To spread like a mantle (especially of blood in the face and cheeks when a person flushes).

   “[…]—that the richest people in the world have the hardest hearts in it, and refuse to help their fellow-creatures, save through the medium of ostentation, and in return for value received?—that the highest and oldest nobility in Europe—the purest blood which ever mantled in the lovely cheek of virgin woman—is regularly exhibited in large bodies, under the protection of British matrons, policemen, and constables, at half-a-crown a head?”

   “[…] and then that coffee! what fragrance it diffused through the room — how the foaming hot cream mantled over it, making discovered country from whose bourne no Master Philip's teeth water, […]”

4. To climb over or onto something.
5. The action of stretching out the wings to hide food.
6. The action of stretching a wing and the same side leg out to one side of the body.