MANTICHORA, in natural history, a name given by the Roman authors to a fierce and terrible creature, which they describe from the Greeks, who call it sometimes also manichora; but when they write more correctly, manichora and maniora. We have formed the name man-tiger on the sound of the Roman name, tho' expressing a very different sense; and our authors of the histories of animals, figure to us under this name a terrible creature, partly from the accounts of Pliny exaggerated, and partly from their own imagination, with three rows of teeth, and with such a shape as no animal ever possessed. See MANTEGAR.
The whole story of this animal seems founded on the love of the wonderful; and very probably the manichora, properly speaking, was no other than some of the larger hyenas, which was at first ill described, and afterwards more and more wonders were added to the story, till all shadow of truth was lost.