gauntlet
pronunciation
How to pronounce gauntlet in British English:
UK [ˈgɔ:ntlət]
How to pronounce gauntlet in American English:
US [ˈɡɔntlɪt, ˈɡɑnt-]
-
- Noun:
- to offer or accept a challenge
- a glove of armored leather; protects the hand
- a glove with long sleeve
- a form of punishment in which a person is forced to run between two lines of men facing each other and armed with clubs or whips to beat the victim
Word Origin
- gauntlet
- gauntlet: The gauntlet of ‘run the gauntlet’ has no etymological connection with gauntlet ‘glove’ [15]. The latter was borrowed from Old French gantelet, a diminutive form of gant ‘glove’. This was originally a Germanic loanword, with surviving relatives in Swedish and Danish vante ‘glove’. As for ‘running the gauntlet’, it was to begin with ‘running the gantlope’, in which gantlope signified ‘two lines of people armed with sticks, who attacked someone forced to run between them’.This was borrowed in the 17th century from Swedish gatlopp, a descendant of Old Swedish gatulop ‘passageway’; this was a compound noun formed from gata ‘way’ (related to English gate, gait) and lop ‘course’ (related to English leap and lope). Under the influence of gauntlet ‘glove’, English changed gatlopp to gantlope, and thence to gantlet (now restricted in use to an ‘overlapping section of railway track’) and gauntlet (as in ‘run the gauntlet’).=> gait, gate, leap, lope
- gauntlet (n.1)
- "glove," early 15c., gantelet, from Old French gantelet (13c.) "gauntlet worn by a knight in armor," also a token of one's personality or person, and in medieval custom symbolizing a challenge, as in tendre son gantelet "throw down the gauntlet" (a sense found in English by 1540s). The Old French word is a semi-diminutive or double-diminutive of gant "glove" (12c.), earlier wantos (7c.), from Frankish *wanth-, from Proto-Germanic *wantuz "glove" (cognates: Middle Dutch want "mitten," East Frisian want, wante, Old Norse vöttr "glove," Danish vante "mitten"), which apparently is related to Old High German wintan, Old English windan "turn around, wind" (see wind (v.)). The name must orig. have applied to a strip of cloth wrapped about the hand to protect it from sword-blows, a frequent practice in the Icelandic sagas. [Buck] Italian guanto, Spanish guante likewise are ultimately from Germanic. The spelling with -u- was established from 1500s.
- gauntlet (n.2)
- military punishment in which offender runs between rows of men who beat him in passing; see gantlet.
Example
- 1. The assembly threw down the gauntlet to the tsar .
- 2. You 're gonna get another chance to run the gauntlet .
- 3. We like the fruits of innovation , but few of us have the mettle to run the gauntlet of innovation .
- 4. They 're gonna kill us anyway , even if we get through the gauntlet .
- 5. Roosevelt spent a year working in this arrangement -- but quickly realized that official guests should not be forced to run a gauntlet of children to see the president of the united states .