Long head hair on a mammal. Male lions and horses in particular have manes. Male lions have a darker fringe of hair framing their face; this is their mane. Horses have a line of long hair growing along their neck up to the top of their head; this is their mane. Manes give animals a peculiar anthropomorphic look, because of the similarity of placement to long human hairstyles. My Little Pony dolls in particular exploit this.

Mane is also used to describe long hair on a person, particularly in cheesy porn and romance novels for some reason. As in "she had a wild mane of beautiful brown tresses" or somesuch.

Mane (?), n. [AS. manu; akin to OD. mane, D. maan, G. mahne, OHG. mana, Icel. mon, Dan. & Sw. man, AS. mene necklace, Icel. men, L. monile, Gr. , , Skr. manya neck muscles. &root;275.]

The long and heavy hair growing on the upper side of, or about, the neck of some quadrupedal animals, as the horse, the lion, etc. See Illust. of Horse.

 

© Webster 1913.