manta

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish manta (“blanket, cloak”),^[2][3][4][5] recorded in Spanish from the 10th century.^[2] The name of the fish comes from the American Spanish use of the word,^[2][6][7] probably given either for the animal's blanket-like shape or from the idea that it wraps itself around its prey;^[2][8] Etymonline quotes Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa's “Voyage to South America”, which says the ray was so called for being broad and long like a quilt.^[5] The Spanish word is an alteration of manto (“cloak”) according to the American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster,^[8][9] and goes back to Late Latin mantum (“cloak”), from mantellum (“cloak”), in Etymonline's account;^[5] Merriam-Webster calls the Late Latin form probably a back-formation from the Latin word,^[9] while the American Heritage Dictionary gives the Latin origin only as a possibility.^[8] Dictionary.com takes the Spanish word through Provençal.^[10] It is thus related to mantle.^[2][5][10] In 1829 the word was adopted as a scientific genus name, Manta, for the largest of these rays.^[11][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A wrap or cloak worn in Spain: 1697, in the English translation of the Countess D'Aunoy's Travels.^[2][3] Etymonline dates the English use for a Spanish wrap or cloak to 1748.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word entered English for the cloaks and shawls of Spain and Latin America, and in the 19th century, mostly in Mexico and the American West, for the coarse cotton cloth they were made of (from 1848).^[2][3] Western miners and packers used a piece of that cloth to hoist ore and tools (1848) and to cover the load on a pack animal (1887);^[2][12] the Dictionary of Canadian English also records it, as a now obsolete western word, for a waterproof sheet protecting a pack.^[2] In mining, a manta was also a vein or mineral deposit (1874), a sense the OED compares with manto (“layer, stratum”).^[2] The sense now best known in English, the giant ray, came from American Spanish in the mid 18th century,^[2][4] and Collins and the Concise Oxford give it first.^[13][7] Two older senses, a travelling blanket or horse-cloth and a movable shelter for besieging soldiers, are now obsolete.^[2]

Timeline

• 1697 – a wrap, cloak or shawl worn in Spain and Spanish-speaking countries.^[2][3]
• 1758 – the manta ray, in a translation of Ulloa's Voyage to South America.^[2] Etymonline dates the fish to 1760.^[5]
• 1828 – a travelling blanket or horse-cloth (obsolete after 1873).^[2]
• 1829 – a movable shelter covering the approach of besieging soldiers, in Washington Irving (obsolete).^[2]
• 1848 – coarse cotton cloth, in the western United States and Mexico; also a cloth for hoisting ore in mining.^[2]
• 1874 – a vein, seam or lode in mining.^[2]
• 1887 – a canvas or cotton cover for a pack.^[2][12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A manta ray: a very large ray of warm seas, with wide wing-like fins, that feeds on plankton.^[13][2][3]
2. A plain, coarse cotton cloth made in Spain and Latin America and used in the southwestern United States.^[13][3][2]
3. A square piece of such cloth, or a blanket, worn as a cloak, head covering or shawl.^[3][13][2]
4. A piece of canvas or heavy cloth used to cover a loaded packsaddle or to wrap loads.^[3][2][12]

Related words

• mantle
• mantel
• mantelet

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins