1a. A form of punishment or torture in which people armed with sticks or other weapons arrange themselves in two lines facing each other and beat the person forced to run between them. b. The lines of people so arranged. 2. An onslaught or attack from all sides: “The hostages . . . ran the gauntlet of insult on their way to the airport” (Harper's). 3. A severe trial; an ordeal.
ETYMOLOGY:
Alteration (influenced by gauntlet1) of gantlope, from Swedish gatlopp : gata, lane (from Old Norse; see gh- in Appendix I) + lopp, course, running (from Middle Low German lp).
WORD HISTORY:
The spelling gauntlet is acceptable for both gauntlet meaning “glove” or “challenge” and gauntlet meaning “a form of punishment in which lines of men beat a person forced to run between them”; but this has not always been the case. The story of the gauntlet used in to throw down the gauntlet is linguistically unexciting: it comes from the Old French word gantelet, a diminutive of gant, “glove.” From the time of its appearance in Middle English (in a work composed in 1449), the word has been spelled with an au as well as an a, still a possible spelling. But the gauntlet used in to run the gauntlet is an alteration of the earlier English form gantlope, which came from the Swedish word gatlopp, a compound of gata, “lane,” and lopp, “course.” The earliest recorded form of the English word, found in 1646, is gantelope, showing that alteration of the Swedish word had already occurred. The English word was then influenced by the spelling of the word gauntlet, “glove,” and in 1676 we find the first recorded instance of the spelling gauntlet for this word, although gantelope is found as late as 1836. From then on spellings with au and a are both found, but the au seems to have won out.
gônt
l
t, gänt
- in Appendix I) + lopp, course, running (from Middle Low German l
p).
