Etymograph

English

mandil

Mandil comes from Arabic مَنْدِيل ‘sash’, and goes back to Latin mantēle ‘cloth to wipe hands or mouth, towel, napkin’.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmantēleas mantēlium‘cloth to wipe hands or mouth, towel, napkin’
  2. Byzantine Greekc. 600–1453μανδίλιονmandílion
  3. Arabicc. 500–presentمَنْدِيلmandīl‘sash’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1634mandil

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmantēleas mantēlium‘cloth to wipe hands or mouth, towel, napkin’
  2. Byzantine Greekc. 600–1453μανδίλιονmandílion
  3. Arabicc. 500–presentمَنْدِيلmandīl‘sash’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1634mandil

Earliest quotation: 1634, Thomas Herbert, A Relation of Some Yeares Trauaile: “His turban, or mandil [mandīl], was of finest white…”

The story

From Arabic مَنْدِيل (mandīl, “sash; turban cloth; handkerchief”), already borrowed before Islam from Byzantine Greek μανδίλιον (mandílion), μαντίλιον (mantílion), μανδήλη (mandḗlē, “cloth; hand towel; handkerchief; tablecloth”) (the last word found in an Egyptian papyrus dated to 481 AD), from Latin mantēlium, mantēle (‘hand towel, napkin’), probably from manus (‘hand’) + tergere (‘to rub, wipe, wipe off; to clean’).

Linked words

through Latin mantēle ‘cloth to wipe hands or mouth, towel, napkin’

mantua, 3 more

Today it means

noun A turban; cloth used to make a turban.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Latin mantēle / mandil

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