Manger

Manger - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

(Luke 2:7, 12, 16), the name (Gr. phatne, rendered "stall" in Luke 13:15) given to the place where the infant Redeemer was laid. It seems to have been a stall or crib for feeding cattle. Stables and mangers in our modern sense were in ancient times unknown in the East. The word here properly denotes "the ledge or projection in the end of the room used as a stall on which the hay or other food of the animals of travellers was placed." (See [376]INN.)

Manger - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

MANGER, n. [L. mando.]

1. A trough or box in which fodder is laid for cattle, or the place in which horses and cattle are fed.

2. In ships of war, a space across the deck, within the hawse-holes, separated from the after part of the deck, to prevent the water which enters the hawse-holes from running over the deck.

man'-jer (phatne): Properly the place in a stall or stable where the food of cattle is placed (in the Old Testament "crib" (Job 39:9; Pr 14:4; Isa 1:3)); thus also, apparently, in the narrative of the nativity in Lu 2:7,12,16. In Septuagint, the Greek word, representing different Hebrew words, has also the extended meaning of "stall" (2Ch 32:28; Hab 3:17); thus also in Lu 13:15, where the Revised Version margin has "manger." Old tradition says that Jesus was born in a cave in the neighborhood of Bethlehem; even so, a place for food for cattle may have been cut in the side of the rock.

James Orr