English
mandylion
Mandylion comes from Byzantine Greek μανδύλιον, and goes back to Latin mantēle ‘cloth to wipe hands or mouth, towel, napkin’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmantēleas mantēlium‘cloth to wipe hands or mouth, towel, napkin’
- Byzantine Greekc. 600–1453μανδύλιονmandúlion
- Englishearliest quotation 1967mandylion
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmantēleas mantēlium‘cloth to wipe hands or mouth, towel, napkin’
- Byzantine Greekc. 600–1453μανδύλιονmandúlion
- Englishearliest quotation 1967mandylion
Earliest quotation: 1967, Titus Burckhardt; Lord Northbourne, Sacred Art in East and West: Its Principles and Methods: “The tradition of the sacred image is related to…”
The story
From Byzantine Greek μανδύλιον (mandúlion), μανδίλιον (mandílion), μαντίλιον (mantílion), or μανδήλη (mandḗlē, “cloth, hand towel, handkerchief, tablecloth”) (the last word dating to the 5th century), especially in the term τὸ ἄγιον μανδήλιον (tò ágion mandḗlion, “the holy towel”); from Latin mantēlium, a variation of mantēle or mantēlum (‘hand towel, napkin’) (probably misconstructed as a singular form from the plural mantēlia); probably from manus (‘hand’) + tergō (‘to rub, wipe, wipe off, clean, cleanse’).
Linked words
through Latin mantēle ‘cloth to wipe hands or mouth, towel, napkin’
Today it means
noun often Mandylion: the Image of Edessa, a holy relic consisting of a piece of cloth upon which an image of the face of Jesus Christ had been miraculously imprinted without human intervention (that is, an acheiropoieton); an artistic depiction of this relic.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin mantēle / mandylion