Other forms: mantises, mantes
A mantis is a green insect that waits with its forelegs folded as if praying. A praying mantis, the mantis struck, a mantis on a leaf.
The folded forelegs are a trap rather than a prayer, and the strike is among the fastest movements in the animal world. The female sometimes eats the male after mating, though far less often in the wild than in a laboratory cage.
1nounmantisA green insect that waits with its forelegs folded.
“A mantis sat perfectly still on the leaf, waiting for a fly.”
mantis is an insect.
Greek mantis means a soothsayer, from the praying posture. Mind is a distant relative.
New Latin
mantis
Ancient Greek
μάντις
Latin
mantis
English, today
mantis
Borrowed from Latin mantis, from Ancient Greek μάντις. From New Latin mantis, from Ancient Greek μάντις (“soothsayer”). Distant a doublet of mind via Proto-Indo-European méntis. Noncognate with mantissa.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA