Word.ws English Dictionary

mantua

/ˈmæn.t(j)u.ə/

mantua noun: an article of loose clothing popular in 17th- and 18th century France.

mantua: an article of loose clothing popular in 17th- and 18th century France
Image: Vihann Kaban, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

mantua (plural mantuas)

  1. An article of loose clothing popular in 17th- and 18th century France.
  2. (obsolete) A superior kind of rich silk formerly exported from Mantua in Italy.
    • Anderson mentions black and coloured mantuas amongst other silks introduced here by the French immigrants of 1685. […] Mantuas are also included in a list of silks advertised for sale in the British Chronicle of 1763 […]1882, S. William Beck, The Draper's Dictionary
  3. (obsolete) A woman's cloak or mantle.
  4. (obsolete) A woman's gown.
    • Her dress was extremely elegant, but had an appearance of foreign fashion, as if both the lady and her mantua-maker were of 'a far countree’.1818, Thomas Love Peacock, chapter 9, in Nightmare Abbey, Hookham, published 1818

Proper noun capitalized: Mantua

Mantua

  1. Province of Lombardy, Italy.
  2. City and capital of Mantua.
    • He and I / Will watch thy waking, and that very night / Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  3. A town in Pinar del Río, Cuba.
  4. A village in Ohio.
  5. A village in Utah.

Forms of mantua

pluralmantuas

Origin of mantua

From French manteau, perhaps by confusion with Mantua in Italy.

From Latin Mantua.

Words formed from mantua

Questions about mantua

What does mantua mean?
Mantua means an article of loose clothing popular in 17th- and 18th century France.
What part of speech is mantua?
Mantua can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce mantua?
Mantua is pronounced /ˈmæn.t(j)u.ə/.
What is the plural of mantua?
The plural of mantua is mantuas.

Words near mantua in the dictionary

  1. mantrips
  2. mantris
  3. mantrum
  4. mantrums
  5. Mantsi
  6. mantua
  7. mantuamaker
  8. mantuamakers
  9. mantuamaking
  10. Mantuan
  11. Mantuanesque

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mantua (page history and authors); Mantua (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-Mantua.wav.

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