Glove (pronounced gluhv)
(1) A
shaped covering for the hand with individual sheaths for the fingers and thumb,
made of leather, fabric etc.
(2) To
cover with or as if with a glove; provide with gloves.
(3) In
specialized use (as golf glove, boxing glove, driving glove etc), any of
various protective or grip-enhancing hand covers worn in sports and related
pursuits.
(4) In
the rules of cricket, to touch a delivery with one's glove while the gloved
hand is on the bat. Under the rules of
cricket, the batsman is deemed to have hit the ball with the bat.
Pre
900: From the Middle English glove
& glofe, from the Old English glōf, glōfe & glōfa (glove (weak forms attested only in plural form glōfan (gloves))), from the Proto-Germanic
galōfô (glove), a construct of ga- (the collective and associative
prefix) + lōfô (flat of the hand,
palm), from the primitive Indo-European lāp-,
lēp-, & lep- (flat). It was cognate with the Old Norse glōfi, the Scots gluve & gluive (glove)
and the Icelandic glófi (glove). It was related to the Middle English lofe &, lufe (palm of the hand). The
verb form “to cover or fit with a glove” emerged circa 1400, gloved & gloving
followed later; Old English had adjective glofed.
The surname Glover is recorded in parish
records from the mid-thirteenth century.
In German, Handschuh is the usual
word for glove and translates literally as "hand-shoe"; the Old High
German was hantscuoh and it exist in
both Danish and Swedish as hantsche,
all related to the Old English Handscio
(the name of one of Beowulf's companions, eaten by Grendel) which was attested
only as a proper name. Glove is both
noun and verb, gloved a verb and adjective, the other adjectival forms being gloveless,
glovelike, un·gloved.
Glove
appear often in English sayings. To throw down the glove (often also as
gauntlet) is to offer a challenge; to
take up the glove is to accept it. Fits like a glove (attested from 1771) indicates
something perfect; to be hand in glove
is to be in association with (often pejorative); to treat with kid gloves means gently to handle; to hang up the gloves (in the sense of a
pugilist) is to retire. Again, drawn
from boxing, to take off the gloves
(when in a dispute or argument) is to continue ruthlessly without regard for
the normal rules of conduct; boxing gloves apparently date from 1847.
Mitten (pronounced mit-n)
(1) A
hand covering enclosing the four fingers together and the thumb separately;
sometimes shortened to mitt.
(2) A
slang term for any form of glove (rare).
1350–1400:
From the Middle English miteyn & mitain, from the Old & Middle French
mitan, miton & mitaine (mitten; half-glove), from Old
French mitaine (Mitain noted as a surname
from the mid-thirteenth century). The
Modern French spelling is mitaine,
from the Frankish mitamo & mittamo (half), superlative of mitti (midpoint), from the Proto-Germanic
midjô & midją (middle, center), from the primitive Indo-European médhyos (between, in the middle, center). It was cognate with the Old High German mittamo & metemo (half, in the middle), the Old Dutch medemest (midmost) and the Old English medume (average, moderate, medium). Related to all was the Medieval Latin mitta of
uncertain origin but perhaps from the Middle High German mittemo & the Old
High German mittamo (middle, midmost
(reflecting the notion of "half-glove")), or from the Vulgar Latin medietana (divided in the middle) from
the Classical Latin medius. From circa 1755, a mitten was a "lace or
knitted silk glove for women covering the forearm, the wrist, and part of the
hand", a item of fashion for women in the early 1800s and revived at the
turn of the twentieth century. The now
obsolete colloquial phrase from the 1820s get
the mitten meaning “a man refused or dismissed as a lover", the notion
receiving the mitten instead of the hand.
The only derived for is the adjective mittenlike; mittened apparently
doesn’t exist.
Lindsay Lohan in gloves.
In general use, many things technically mittens are referred to as gloves. Boxing gloves for example don't have separate fingers but there is actually a boxing mitt. It features thicker knuckle padding compared to standard boxing gloves, designed to protect the hands from heavy boxing bag impacts. Manufacturers caution that while they can be used for pad work, their dense foam protection is not ideal for sparring sessions.
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