Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Gauntlet

Gaunt′let (gänt′lĕt), n. (Mil.) See Gantlet.

Gaunt′let (gänt′lĕt; 277), n. [F. gantelet, dim. of gant glove, LL. wantus, of Teutonic origin; cf. D. want, Sw. & Dan. vante, Icel. vöttr, for vantr.] 1. A glove of such material that it defends the hand from wounds.

☞ The gauntlet of the Middle Ages was sometimes of chain mail, sometimes of leather partly covered with plates, scales, etc., of metal sewed to it, and, in the 14th century, became a glove of small steel plates, carefully articulated and covering the whole hand except the palm and the inside of the fingers.

2. A long glove, covering the wrist.

3. (Naut.) A rope on which hammocks or clothes are hung for drying.

To take up the gauntlet, to accept a challenge. — To throw down the gauntlet, to offer or send a challenge. The gauntlet or glove was thrown down by the knight challenging, and was taken up by the one who accepted the challenge; — hence the phrases.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.