Crossword clues for gantlet
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Gantlet \Gant"let\, n. [Gantlet is corrupted fr. gantlope; gantlope is for gatelope, Sw. gatlopp, orig., a running down a lane; gata street, lane + lopp course, career, akin to l["o]pa to run. See Gate a way, and Leap.] A military punishment formerly in use, wherein the offender was made to run between two files of men facing one another, who struck him as he passed.
To run the gantlet, to suffer the punishment of the gantlet; hence, to go through the ordeal of severe criticism or controversy, or ill-treatment at many hands.
Winthrop ran the gantlet of daily slights.
--Palfrey.
Note: Written also, but less properly, gauntlet.
Gantlet \Gant"let\, n. A glove. See Gauntlet.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"military punishment in which offender runs between rows of men who beat him in passing," 1640s, gantlope, gantelope, from Swedish gatlopp "passageway," from Old Swedish gata "lane" (see gate (n.)) + lopp "course," related to löpa "to run" (see leap (v.)). Probably borrowed by English soldiers during Thirty Years' War.\n
\nBy normal evolution the Modern English form would be *gatelope, but the current spelling (first attested 1660s, not fixed until mid-19c.) is from influence of gauntlet (n.1) "a glove," "there being some vague association with 'throwing down the gauntlet' in challenge" [Century Dictionary].
Wiktionary
n. (alternative spelling of gauntlet English)
WordNet
n. to offer or accept a challenge; "threw down the gauntlet"; "took up the gauntlet" [syn: gauntlet]
a glove of armored leather; protects the hand [syn: gauntlet, metal glove]
a glove with long sleeve [syn: gauntlet]
the convergence of two parallel railroad tracks in a narrow place; the inner rails cross and run parallel and then diverge so a train remains on its own tracks at all times
a form of punishment in which a person is forced to run between two lines of men facing each other and armed with clubs or whips to beat the victim [syn: gauntlet]
Usage examples of "gantlet".
If they could run that gantlet and defeat him in battle, the tribute would be forgiven, and thereafter the bovines would be permitted to graze free.
They all rose and started toward the chute--Harry and Sally Carrol in the lead, her little mitten buried in his big fur gantlet.
With Pelfer's Gantlets, Cowl, and Buskins in our possession, we would shortly be the richest thieves on earth!
If we possessed the Gantlets, Cowl and Buskins of Pelfer the Peerless, then we could shortly make ourselves so rich we could reforest all of Chilia, make even her stoniest ridges green with skorse, have the great trees growing thick as grass even in the high barrens of Magnass-Dryan.
However obscenely rich we shortly grew by means of the great Pelfer's Buskins, Cowl and Gantlets, our outlay in the first instance must be huge.
But it was on this occasion that Nifft heard from Gildmirth a highly particular account of Pelfer the Peerless' tomb, and of the Buskins, Cowl and Gantlets buried there with that arch-thief.
With regard to these Gantlets, the popular conception does not so much err as fall short.
With the Buskins, Cowl and Gantlets, we could break into Mhurdaal's Manse.
I saw my hands, in Pelfer's gantlets, touch the iron gates of Mhurdaal's Manse (all hung with corpses of unsuccessful thieves, still fresh and bleeding though long centuries slain).
The various gantlets cut through scree and rubble were not so much traps for invaders as for defenders!
Devetaki had Tangiru the Grunt land his mightiest warriors on the piled ramps at the sides of the gantlets, where their sheer mass was sufficient to collapse the walls inwards, smothering who or whatever waited in ambush, and effectively blocking any possible future escape route.
An exudation - a spewing out like pus from a boil - from the lower levels of Madmanse, down its ramps and through its gantlets, into the scree and rubble of the bottoms.
And while all such works were in progress to make the cavern liveable if not 'comfortable,' Lord Radu was not remiss in seeing to its defences: Outside, between the natural spurs of the crag, he built awesome death-trap gantlets for would-be invaders.