mantle

Multiple Entries:
  mantle    mantel  

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
mantle1

▶noun

• 1 a woman's loose sleeveless cloak or shawl.

• 2 a covering: a mantle of snow.

• 3 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).]

• 4 (also gas mantle) a mesh cover fixed round a gas jet to give an incandescent light when heated.

• 5 Ornithology a bird's back, scapulars, and wing coverts.

• 6 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.

• 7 Geology the region of the earth's interior between the crust and the core, believed to consist of hot, dense silicate rocks (mainly peridotite).

▶verb

• 1 literary cloak or envelop.

• 2 (of the face) glow with a blush.

• 3 (of a bird of prey on the ground) spread the wings and tail, especially so as to cover captured prey.

• 4 archaic (of a liquid) become covered with a head or froth.

– origin OE mentel, from L. mantellum ‘cloak’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
mantle2

▶noun variant spelling of mantel.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
mantel /ˈmantl/ (also mantle)

▶noun a mantelpiece or mantelshelf.

– origin C16: specialized use of mantle1.