mantle1
n.
- a woman's loose sleeveless cloak or shawl.
- a covering:
a mantle of snow.
- an important role or responsibility that passes from one person to another.
[with allusion to the passing of Elijah's cloak (mantle) to Elisha (2 Kings 2:13).]
-
(also gas mantle)
a mesh cover fixed round a gas jet to give an incandescent light when heated.
- Ornithology a bird's back, scapulars, and wing coverts.
- Zoology an outer or enclosing layer of tissue, especially (in molluscs, cirripedes, and brachiopods) a fold of skin enclosing the viscera and secreting the shell.
- Geology the region of the earth's interior between the crust and the core, believed to consist of hot, dense silicate rocks (mainly peridotite).
v.
- literary cloak or envelop.
- (of the face) glow with a blush.
- (of a bird of prey on the ground) spread the wings and tail, especially so as to cover captured prey.
- archaic (of a liquid) become covered with a head or froth.
Etymology
OE mentel, from L. mantellum ‘cloak’.