Other forms: manes
A mane is the long hair growing along the top of a horse's neck, or the thick ring of hair round a male lion's head. A girl plaiting her pony's mane before a show; a fistful of it grabbed on the way over a jump.
Only some animals have one: horses, lions, zebras, a few breeds of dog. Used of a person, mane is a compliment — a mane of red curls, he shook back his silver mane. It means hair that is thick, loose and impressive, never a neat haircut. Watch the spelling, because mane and main sound identical and main means chief. Lion's mane is also the name of a jellyfish with long trailing tentacles and of a shaggy white mushroom.
1nounmaneThe long hair growing along the neck of a horse, or round the head of a male lion.~98%
“She combed the pony's mane and tail before the show.”
2nounthickA thick, full head of hair on a person.~2%
“He shook back his mane of grey hair and laughed.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 8 sentences found in the wild and placed 7 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
mane is a growth of long hair.
Mane is old and unbroken. Old English had manu, from Proto-Germanic mano, and behind that a Proto-Indo-European root meaning neck. German Mahne and Dutch manen are the same word wearing different clothes.
Proto-Indo-European
*mony-
Proto-Germanic
*manō — mane
Proto-West Germanic
*manu
Old English
manu — mane
Middle English
mane
English, today
mane
Built from
From Middle English mane, mayne, from Old English manu (“mane”), from Proto-West Germanic manu, from Proto-Germanic manō (“mane”), from Proto-Indo-European mony-, mon- (“neck”). Cognate with Dutch maan, manen (“mane”), German Mähne (“mane”), Danish man (“horse's mane”), Swedish man (“horse's mane”), Icelandic mön (“mane”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA