man|tle

man|tle¹ «MAN tuhl», noun, verb, -tled, -tling.

–n.

1. a loose cloak without sleeves: »

a mantle thrown over his shoulders.

2. Figurative. anything that covers like a mantle: »

The ground had a mantle of snow.

3. a lacelike tube around a gas flame that gets so hot it glows and gives light.

4. Zoology. a) the fold of the body wall of a mollusk that lines the shell and secretes the material which forms the shell; pallium. It often serves largely for respiration. b) a pair of similar folds that secrete the shell of a brachiopod. c) the soft tissue that lines the shell of a tunicate or barnacle.

5. the folded wings and back feathers of a bird that enclose the body like a cloak.

6. Geology. the part of the earth beneath the crust and above the outer core: »

Conditions within the earth's thin crust are controlled from the mantle (New York Times).

7. a steel structure which supports the stack of a blast furnace.

–v.t.

1. to cover with or as if with a mantle: »

a small stagnant stream, mantled over with bright green mosses (Scott).

2. Figurative. to cover or conceal; obscure; cloak: »

Clouds mantled the moon.

–v.i.

1. to blush; flush; redden: »

Her face mantled with shame.

2. Figurative. to spread out like a mantle: »

The rosy blush of dawn began to mantle in the east (Washington Irving).

3. to be or become covered with a coating or scum: »

The pond has mantled.

4. to spread first one wing and then the other over the corresponding outstretched leg for exercise, as a perched hawk does in falconry.

╂[fusion of Old English maentel < Latin mantellum, and of Middle English mantel < Old French < Latin mantellum]

man|tle² «MAN tuhl», noun.

= mantel. (Cf. ↑mantel)