Dictionary

take off one's gloves en · VERB

Etymology

See gloves are off.

Meanings

1. To be unrestrained, especially in acting in a violent or punitive manner.
   • Ben-Gurion's self-restraint was soon exhausted and the British now took off their gloves to crush the Arabs by all and any means: they collectively punished villages and at one point destroyed a whole neighbourhood of Jaffa. 2011, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography – A History of the Middle East, page 541:
   • So, for example, in the midst of social tensions and manpower shortages in Britain (December 1916), David Lloyd George came to head a war regime which took off its gloves in handling the domestic unrest and keeping dissidents, like Siegfried Sassoon and his famous antiwar letter, out of the public eye. 2015, Hunt Tooley, The Great War: Western Front and Home Front, page 208:
   • The public's duty is to take the role of prosecutor in seeking out the truth: and we ought to roll up our sleeves, take off the gloves, and wade into action. 1952, United States. Congress, Congressional Record, page 8391:
   • The Court is willing to take off its gloves for the most serious infringements, however. 2017, András Jakab, Dimitry Kochenov, The Enforcement of EU Law and Values:
2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see take off, glove.

Forms

Antonyms

treat with kid gloves · handle with kid gloves

Relateds

kid gloves · gloves are off · kid-glove · throw down the gauntlet