Meanings
plural manicles
- On armor, a kind of attached mail glove or gauntlet.
[Footnotes:] impossible: Gawain clearly considers his pledge to be as binding as an oath. gauntlets: strictly speaking, manicles would in this case be chainmail mittens.
2000, Lancelot of the Lake, Oxford University Press, USA, →ISBN, page 4291 more example
The sergents, in place of the hauberk, wore a smaller hauberk called a haubergeon without manicles - the attached mail glove - an iron cap in place of the helmet, and nail leggings without foot-protectors (see Contanine, p.69).
2007 06, E. H. Ruck, An Index of Themes and Motifs in Twelfth-Century French Arthurian Poetry, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, →ISBN, page 157 - obsoleteObsolete form of manacle.
One implication of “deliverance” is release from the bondage of the mind, nicely summed up by William Blake's “mindforg'd manicles” (102). When the mind is unaware of its enslavement, emancipation is impossible.
2014 February 7, James Everett Kibler, Jr.; David Moltke-Hansen, William Gilmore Simms's Selected Reviews on Literature and Civilization, Univ of South Carolina Press, →ISBN
Origin
- Old Frenchmanicle“gauntlet; manacle”
- Middle Englishmanicle
- Englishmanicle
From Middle English manicle, from Old French manicle (“gauntlet; manacle”). Doublet of manacle and manicule.
More words from Middle English, Old French
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
manicle. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/manicle
“manicle.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/manicle. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “manicle,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/manicle.
Source: manicle on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.