manicle

M3A1N1I1C3L1E1

noun

On armor, a kind of attached mail glove or gauntlet.

Scrabble 11

Meanings

nounmanicle (plural manicles)

plural manicles

  1. 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 429
    1 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
  2. 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

  1. Old Frenchmanicle“gauntlet; manacle”
  2. Middle Englishmanicle
  3. Englishmanicle

From Middle English manicle, from Old French manicle (“gauntlet; manacle”). Doublet of manacle and manicule.

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

manicle. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/manicle

MLA

“manicle.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/manicle. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “manicle,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/manicle.

Source: manicle on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.