Manifer
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A large gauntlet worn over the bridle hand during jousting tournaments.
"In addition to the ordinary tilting armour extra pieces were worn : The grandguard and volant piece, very often riveted together; the elbow or pasguard, and the manifer or miton gauntlet for the bridle hand."
Example
More examples"In addition to the ordinary tilting armour extra pieces were worn : The grandguard and volant piece, very often riveted together; the elbow or pasguard, and the manifer or miton gauntlet for the bridle hand."
Etymology
Manifer (mainfer, mainfere) ("gauntlet") and manefaire (mainfaire) ("horse's neck armor") are often taken to have originally been one word, attested in Middle English as mayndefer, maynfer, and maynefere in lists of armor used by men and their horses. Harold Dillon, 17th Viscount Dillon and Charles John ffoulkes take the meaning of "gauntlet" to be the original, from French main de fer (literally “hand of iron”); see manefaire (“horse's neck armor”) for more on that meaning.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.