Meaning
To issue a bold, public challenge to an opponent, inviting a contest, debate or confrontation; the challenged party may then accept, or take up the gauntlet, or decline. Now largely rhetorical rather than physical, and common in politics, sport and business. Formal or journalistic; consciously rhetorical. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The phrase preserves the medieval custom by which a knight challenged an opponent to single combat by hurling his gauntlet, the armoured glove, to the ground; to pick the glove up was to accept. The Phrase Finder traces the phrase's first appearance in English print to Hall's Chronicles of Richard III (1548), which recounts a proclamation and a challenge in which a nobleman threw down his gauntlet. The custom itself is conventional medieval history, though the surviving records of the gesture lie in chronicles and law rather than everyday drama. The companion phrase take up the gauntlet, for accepting a challenge, grew out of the same ritual, and both long outlived armoured gloves as pure metaphor.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- cast down the gauntlet
- fling down the gauntlet
- lay down the gauntlet
- throw down the glove
Usage Examples
- By publishing the open letter, the mayor threw down the gauntlet to her fiercest critics.
- The challenger threw down the gauntlet with a phone that matches the flagship models at half the price.
- Rather than throw down the gauntlet at the meeting, she raised her objections quietly in writing.