You know the phrase "run the gauntlet," that is, undergo a punishment in which a group of men form parallel lines and beat you while you run between them? Well, this is a gauntlet from White Rose Armory. How did it come to mean "a line of angry people hitting you with stuff?" Were the original gauntlet runners struck with large metal gloves? I've often wondered, but Phrase Finder has set me straight:
The name of the brutal punishment was originally 'running the gantelope'. Gantlope is an Anglicised form of the Swedish word 'gatlop', or 'gatu-lop', which refers to the gate of soldiers that the victim had to pass through. The Ist Earl of Shaftsbury recorded the phrase in his Diary, 1646:
"Three were condemned to die, two to run the gantelope."
It didn't take long for gantlope to migrate into ganlet, or gauntlet - possibly as a result of a simple muddle over the similar-sounding words or possibly because of the association with the use of gauntlets as weapons and with the antagonism implicit in [another idiomatic expression,] 'throwing down the gauntlet' [that is, issuing a challenge].
The illustration below is Spiessgasse (Pike-alley), from the Frundsberger War Book of Jost Amman, 1525, via Answers.com:
Smell the glove.....
Posted by: CraigC | August 26, 2007 at 12:01 AM
I thought it was two different words.. "running the gantlet" and "throwing the gauntlet." I was probably always misspelling them.
Posted by: Miss Cellania | August 27, 2007 at 05:28 PM