Word.ws English Dictionary

mantilla

Syllables: man·til·la/manˈtɪlə/US/mænˈti(j)ə/

mantilla noun: a lace veil of Spanish origin worn over a woman's hair and shoulders.

mantilla: a lace veil of Spanish origin worn over a woman's hair and shoulders
Image: Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

mantilla (plural mantillas)

  1. A lace veil of Spanish origin worn over a woman's hair and shoulders.
    • [M]y eyes were oft times [on the] charmante maitresse de la maison, who glided among her guests in her flowing Spanish mantilla, and train of the clearest blonde, doing her devoirs with winning kindness, and showing how much benevolence of manner adds to beauty.1836 July, “London Fashionable Chit-Chat”, in The Lady's Magazine and Museum of the Belles-lettres, Fine Arts, Music, Drama, Fashions, &c. (Improved Series. Enlarged.), volume IX, London: Dobbs &...
    • Still the mantilla preserved its sway; it had taken a fast hold of the affections of all classes of the feminine gender; and there is now as much chance of driving roast-beef from our shores as there is of transporting black mantillas. […] no squire's lady, no duke's duchess, no countess, and no...1842 August, “Rushings; or British Popular Vagaries”, in Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, volume XXVI, number CLII, London: G. W. Nickisson, 215 Regent Street, (Successor to the late James...
  2. A woman's light cloak or cape made of silk, velvet, lace, or other material.
    • The Duchess of Alba wrapped herself in a mantilla coat, asked her guest to take a chair in the middle of the patio and placed herself three steps behind him in the shade of a magnolia.1980 October, New Writing and Writers, volume 18, London: John Calder (Publishers) Ltd., →ISBN, →OCLC, page 50

Proper noun capitalized: Mantilla

Mantilla (plural Mantillas)

  1. A surname.

mantilla meaning in Tagalog and Indonesian

mantilla in Tagalog

Spanish lace veil worn over a woman's hair and shoulders
mantilya

mantilla in Indonesian

Spanish lace veil worn over a woman's hair and shoulders
mantila
woman's light cloak
mantila

Forms of mantilla

Noun
pluralmantillas
Proper noun
pluralMantillas

Origin of mantilla

Borrowed from Spanish mantilla (“large veil; small cape”), from manta (“blanket, cloth, cloth banner”) + -illa (diminutive).

Words that rhyme with mantilla

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about mantilla

What does mantilla mean?
Mantilla means a lace veil of Spanish origin worn over a woman's hair and shoulders.
What is mantilla in Tagalog?
Mantilla in Tagalog is mantilya. See Mantilla meaning in Tagalog.
What part of speech is mantilla?
Mantilla can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce mantilla?
Mantilla is pronounced /manˈtɪlə/ (UK).
What is the plural of mantilla?
The plural of mantilla is mantillas.

Words near mantilla in the dictionary

  1. mantienneite
  2. manties
  3. Mantila
  4. Mantilda
  5. Mantildas
  6. mantilla
  7. mantillas
  8. mantinada
  9. mantinades
  10. Mantinea
  11. Mantinean

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mantilla (page history and authors); Mantilla (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-mantilla.wav.

Cite this entry: “mantilla.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mantilla. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.