Other forms: gauntlets
A gauntlet is an armoured glove, thrown down as a challenge. Throw down the gauntlet.
To throw down the gauntlet is to challenge and to take it up is to accept. Running the gauntlet is a different word entirely and came from a Swedish military punishment.
1noungauntletAn armoured glove, thrown down as a challenge.
“He threw down the gauntlet in the first paragraph of the letter.”
gauntlet is a glove.
Old French gantelet is a diminutive of gant, a glove, which came into French from Frankish.
Proto-Germanic
*wantuz — glove; mitten
Medieval Latin
wantus — glove
Frankish
*wantu — glove; mitten
Old French
gantelet — gauntlet worn by a knight in armor, a token of one's personality or person, and symbolizing a challenge
Middle English
gauntelett
English, today
gauntlet
Built from
From Middle English gauntelett, gantlett, a borrowing from Old French gantelet (“gauntlet worn by a knight in armor, a token of one's personality or person, and symbolizing a challenge”), diminutive of gant (“glove”), a borrowing from Frankish wantu (“glove; mitten”) and reinforced by Medieval Latin wantus (“glove”) itself borrowed from the former, from Proto-Germanic wantuz (“glove; mitten”). Cognate with Dutch want (“mitten; shroud”), German Low German Want (“shroud”), Danish vante (“mitten”), Swedish vante (“glove; mitten”), Faroese vøttur (“glove; mitten”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA