Definition of "manta" [‖Man•ta]

• A rough-textured cotton fabric or blanket made and used in Spanish America and the southwest United States. (noun)
• Any of several rays of the family Mobulidae, inhabiting tropical and subtropical seas and having a large flattened body, winglike pectoral fins, a whiplike tail, and two hornlike fins that project forward from the head. Also called devilfish, manta ray, sea devil. (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.

• "When they feast a friend they kill an ox, and set immediately a quarter of him raw upon the table (for their most elegant treat is raw beef newly killed) with pepper and salt; the gall of the ox serves them for oil and vinegar; some, to heighten the delicacy of the entertainment, add a kind of sauce, which they call manta, made of what they take out of the guts of the ox; this they set on the fire, with butter, salt, pepper, and onion."
• "There are no frickin 'manta rays with frickin' lasers on their heads in the film."
• "The only one that is being spewed like a manta is the same one that has not worked i.e. trickle down economics."