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man·ta

(măntə)

1. A rough-textured cotton fabric or blanket made and used in Spanish America and the southwest United States.

2. A very large ray (Manta birostris) inhabiting tropical and subtropical seas, having a whiplike tail and two hornlike fins that project forward from the head, and feeding on plankton. Also called devil ray, manta ray.

[Spanish, blanket, manta (from its blanketlike shape), alteration of manto, cloak, perhaps from Latin mantellum, mantēlum.]

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

Indo-European Roots

Semitic Roots

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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