English
manteau
Manteau comes from French manteau ‘mantle’, and goes back to Latin mantēle ‘cloth to wipe hands or mouth, towel, napkin’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmantēleas mantellum‘cloth to wipe hands or mouth, towel, napkin’
- Frenchc. 1600–presentmanteau‘mantle’
- Englishearliest quotation 2006same form
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmantēleas mantellum‘cloth to wipe hands or mouth, towel, napkin’
- Frenchc. 1600–presentmanteau‘mantle’
- Englishearliest quotation 2006same form
Earliest quotation: 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day: “Not to mention the need to keep her manteau…”
The story
In the Iranian context, borrowed from Persian مانتو (mânto), originating in the Qajar period.
Linked words
through French manteau ‘mantle’
Today it means
noun A cloak or gown, especially of a kind popular with women in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin mantēle / manteau