Definition of "mantle" []

• A loose sleeveless coat worn over outer garments; a cloak. (noun)
• Something that covers, envelops, or conceals: "On a summer night . . . a mantle of dust hangs over the gravel roads” ( John Dollard). (noun)
• Variant of mantel. (noun)
• The outer covering of a wall. (noun)
• A zone of hot gases around a flame. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "So far, no politician has emerged as a leader of the Tea Party movement – and the question of just who might eventually take up the mantle is a hot topic on the bus."
• "Picking up the mantle is a relative newcomer: Lu Din Gee Cafe, where seven of us gathered recently for a duck feast."
• "I had opened it at a Gnostic Hymn that told of a certain King’s son who, being exiled, slept in Egypt—a symbol of the natural state—and how an Angel while he slept brought him a royal mantle; and at the bottom of the page I found a footnote saying that the word mantle did not represent the meaning properly, for that which the Angel gave had the exile’s own form and likeness."