Manticore

Definition: Manticore

Manticore

Noun

1. A mythical monster having the head of man (with horns) and the body of a lion and the tail of a scorpion.

Synonyms: Manticore

Synonyms: mantichora (n), manticora (n), mantiger (n). (additional references)

The manticore is a mythical creature, a kind of chimera with the head of a man— often with horns— the body of a lion and the tail of a dragon or scorpion, which may shoot out venomous spines to incapacitate prey (thus confusing its imagery with the cryptozoology of a porcupine). Occasionally, a manticore will possess wings of some description.

The manticore was of Persian origin, a man-eater (from the Persian martya , 'man' and xvar 'to eat'), apparently passing into European mythology first through a remark by Ctesias, a Greek physician at the Persian court of King Artaxerxes II in the fourth century BCE, in his notes on India (Indika), which circulated among Greek writers on natural history, but have not survived.

The Romanized Greek Pausanias, in his Description of Greece got carried into a tangent, recalling strange animals he had seen at Rome, and mentioned

"The beast described by Ctesias in his Indian history, which he says is called martichoras by the Indians and 'man-eater' by the Greeks, I am inclined to think is the tiger. But that it has three rows of teeth along each jaw and spikes at the tip of its tail with which it defends itself at close quarters, while it hurls them like an archer's arrows at more distant enemies; all this is, I think, a false story that the Indians pass on from one to another owing to their excessive dread of the beast.' (Description, xxi, 5)

Pliny the Elder did not share Pausanias' skepticism. He followed Aristotle's natural history by including the 'martichoras'— mistranscribed as 'manticorus' in his copy of Aristotle and thus passing into European languages— among his descriptions of animals in Naturalis Historia, ca 77 CE. Pliny's book was widely enjoyed and uncritically believed through the European Middle Ages, during which the manticore was sometimes illustrated in bestiaries. The manticore made a late appearance in heraldry, during the 16th century, and it influenced some Mannerist representations— sometimes in paintings but more often in the decorative schemes called 'grotteschi'— of the sin of Fraud, conceived as a monstrous chimera with a beautiful woman's face, and in this way it passed into the 17th and 18th century French conception of a sphinx.

Nowadays, the manticore is said to inhabit the forests of Asia, particularly Indonesia. The manticore can kill instantly with a bite or a scratch, and will then eat the victim entirely, bones and all. Whenever a person disappears completely, it is said that the locals consider it the work of the manticore. An authentic eastern 'manticore' tradition would clearly have to refer to the creature as a 'marticore.'

The manticore is also known as the manticora, the mantichor, or by a folk etymology, even the mantiger. Outside occultist circles, the manticore was still an arcane creature in the Western worldwhen Gian Carlo Menotti wrote his ballet 'The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore' in 1956.

Domain	Usage
Screenplays	Oh, another Manticore wit. (Dark Angel; writing credit: Ben Aaronovitch; Mark Ezra)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Domain	Title
Books	Manticore (reference) Marianne, the Magus, and the Manticore (reference) The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business, the Manticore, World of Wonders (reference) The Manticore (reference) (more book examples)

Music	Amelia al ballo (Amelia Goes to the Ball--Orig 1954 Prod) and Instrumental Interludes from the Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore (reference) Menotti: The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

"Manticore" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 60.00% of the time. "Manticore" is used about 5 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	60%	3	202,518
Lexical Verb (base form)	40%	2	245,945
Total	100.00%	5	N/A

Derivations
	Words beginning with "manticore": manticores. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Direct Anagrams: cremation.
	Words within the letters "a-c-e-i-m-n-o-r-t"
	-1 letter: anoretic, coinmate, creation, intercom, reaction, romantic.
	-2 letters: aconite, amniote, carmine, carotin, centimo, ceratin, certain, cointer, coremia, creatin, enactor, encomia, erotica, incomer, mantric, minaret, minorca, moraine, mortice, nematic, noticer, raiment, romaine, romance, tacrine, tonearm, tonemic.
	-3 letters: acetin, action, aeonic, airmen, anemic, anomic, anomie, aortic, aroint, atomic, atoner, atonic, camion, canter, cantor, carmen, carnet, carnie, carton, cation, centai, centra, cinema, citron, coater, coiner, comate, contra, cornea, cornet, cortin, craton, cretin, enamor, enatic, erotic, etamin, iceman, imaret, income, inmate, macron, manioc, manito, mantic, marine, marten, martin, matron, mentor, merino, metric, micron, mincer, minter, moaner, nectar, noetic, norite, notice, octane, omenta, orcein, orient, ornate, ratine, ration, recant, recoin, remain, remint, retain, retina, tamein, tanrec, tonier, trance.
	-4 letters: acorn, actin, actor, aimer, ament, amice, amine, amino, amnic, amnio, amort, anime, antic, antre, areic, armet, atone, cairn, cameo, caner, canoe, canto, caret, carom, carte, cater, cento, ceria, citer, coati, comae, comer, comet, comte, conte, coria, cotan, crane, crate, cream, crime, crone, enact, enorm, entia, erica, inarm, inert, inter, intro, irate, irone, macer, macon, macro, manic, manor, mater, matin, meant, menta, merit, metro, micra, micro, minae, mince, miner, minor, miter, mitre, moira, moire, monie, monte, morae, nacre, namer, narco, naric, nicer, niter, nitre, nitro, noria, noter, oaten, oater, ocean, ocrea, octan, ontic, orate, orcin, racon, ramen, ramet, ramie, rance, ratio, react, recon, recta, recti, recto, reman, remit, retia, riant, roman, tamer, taroc, tenia, tenor, terai, timer, tinea, toman, toner, tonic, toric, trace, train, triac, trice, trine, trona, trone.
	-5 letters: acme, acne, acre, aeon, aero, airn, airt, amen, amie, amin, amir, ante, anti, arco, atom, cain, came, cane, cant, care, carn, cart, cate, cent, cero, ciao, cine, cion, cire, cite, coat, coin, coir, coma, come, cone, coni, core, corm, corn, cote, cram, earn, emic, emir, emit, etic, etna, icon, inro, into, iota, iron, item, mace, main, mair, mane, mano, marc, mare, mart, mate, mean, meat, meno, meta, mica, mice, mien, mina, mine, mint, mire, mite, moan, moat, mora, more, morn, mort, mote, name, naoi, narc, near, neat, nema, nice, nite, noir, noma, nome, nori, norm, nota, note, omen, omer, omit, once, orca, otic, race, rain, rami, rani, rant, rate, rato, ream, rein, rent, rice, rime, riot, rite, roam, roan, rota, rote, roti, tace, taco, tain, tame, tare, tarn, taro, team, tear, term, tern, tier, time, tine, tire, tiro, toea, tome, tone, tora, torc, tore, tori, torn, tram, trim, trio.
	Words containing the letters "a-c-e-i-m-n-o-r-t"
	+1 letter: cremations, importance, maceration, manometric, manticores.
	+2 letters: actinometer, actinometry, axonometric, centimorgan, craniometry, creationism, demarcation, emancipator, embrocation, euchromatin, importances, imprecation, interatomic, macerations, mercuration, metrication, miscreation, necromantic, nonmetrical, preromantic, reclamation, recombinant, romanticise, romanticize.
	+3 letters: actinometers, actinometric, aeromagnetic, anticonsumer, biometrician, centimorgans, commentaries, conservatism, counterclaim, counterimage, craniotomies, creationisms, demarcations, dominatrices, dynamometric, emancipators, embrocations, enantiomeric, euchromatins, gastrocnemii, geometrician, gyromagnetic, importancies, imprecations, intercompany, intercompare, mercurations, metrications, metronomical, miscreations, nonmetameric, overmatching, racemization, reclamations, recombinants, romanticised, romanticises, romanticized, romanticizes, undemocratic, unimportance.
	+4 letters: actinometries, anisometropic, anticonsumers, biometricians, ceremonialist, chromonematic, cinematograph, cliometrician, commemorating, commemoration, commiserating, commiseration, complimentary, conglomeratic, conservatisms, counterclaims, counterimages, craniometries, customariness, democratizing, documentarian, documentaries, documentarily, documentarist, ferromagnetic, galvanometric, gastrocnemius, geometricians, hydromagnetic, hyperromantic, intercommunal, intercompared, intercompares, macronutrient, magnetometric, manufactories, mercerization, microfilament, neuroanatomic, nondemocratic, nonparametric, paramountcies, racemizations, recombination, recompilation, recomputation, recontaminate, recrimination, recriminatory, spermatogenic, superromantic, thermodynamic, triamcinolone, unimportances, unproblematic, vermiculation.
	+5 letters: actinomorphies, aerodynamicist, anthropometric, anticommercial, antidemocratic, carcinomatoses, ceremonialists, cholestyramine, chronometrical, cinematographs, cinematography, cliometricians, commemorations, commensuration, commiserations, compartmenting, conglomerating, conglomeration, conglomerative, contemporaries, contemporarily, counterclaimed, countermanding, cyanobacterium, decontaminator, discouragement, documentarians, documentarists, econometrician, electrodynamic, enantiomorphic, excommunicator, extraembryonic, immunoreactive, incommensurate, intercomparing, intermolecular, intramolecular, laryngectomies, macroevolution, macronutrients, magnetospheric, manometrically, mercaptopurine, mercerizations, metronomically, microanatomies, microfilaments, microminiature, miscorrelation, nomenclatorial, nongeometrical, nonrecombinant, nonsymmetrical, organometallic, overmedicating, overmedication, pronunciamento, reactionaryism, recombinations, recommendation, recompilations, recomputations, reconfirmation, recontaminated, recontaminates, recriminations, terminological, thermodynamics, thermomagnetic, triamcinolones, trichomonacide, trichomoniases, turbomachinery, unromanticized, vermiculations.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.