manteau

English

Borrowed from French manteau (“mantle”). Doublet of mantle and mantel. In the Iranian context, borrowed from Persian مانتو (manto), likely a borrowing or double etymology from French manteau, originating in the Qajar period.

manteau (plural manteaus or manteaux)

A cloak or gown, especially of a kind popular with women in the 17th and 18th centuries.
- 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 915:
  Not to mention the need to keep her manteau from becoming a sort of anti-parachute which sought to lift her free of the pavement.

(Iran) A long, loose-fitting coat worn by Iranian Muslim women based off the trenchcoat, originally worn with a square Arabic-style hijab and in plain colours such as beige, black, pale blue or cream, originating in the 1970s as a political statement by young, educated women, especially students, many devoted to leftist or modern Islamist ideals, though in the decades following the Iranian Revolution has come to be worn as a tighter-fitting garment with a looser scarf by younger Iranian women as a way of compromising with the country’s mandatory hijab laws while remaining fashionable.