Glove

Hand and glove. Sworn friends; on most intimate terms; close companions, like glove and hand.

“And prate and preach about what others prove,

As if the world and they were hand and glove.”

He bit his glove. He resolved on mortal revenge. On the “Border,” to bite the glove was considered a pledge of deadly vengeance.

“Stern Rutherford right little said,

But bit his glove and shook his head.”

Sir Walter Scott: Lay of the Last Minstrel.

Here I throw down my glove. I challenge you. In allusion to an ancient custom of a challenger throwing his glove or gauntlet at the feet of the person challenged, and bidding him to pick it up. If he did so the two fought, and the vanquisher was considered to be adjudged by God to be in the right. To take up the glove means, therefore, to accept the challenge.

“I will throw my glove to Death itself, that there’s no maculation in thy heart.”—Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressidu, iv. 4.

To take up the glove. To accept the challenge made by casting a glove or gauntlet on the ground.

Right as my glove. The phrase, says Sir Walter Scott, comes from the custom of pledging a glove as the signal of irrefragable faith. (The Antiquary.)

· ·

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.