Etymology
The word "gantlet" is derived from "gantelope", from the Swedish "gatlopp" (street run, street race); a loanword probably acquired by English soldiers during the Thirty Years' War. The modern spelling of "gauntlet" was influenced by the French-derived word used for a glove worn as protection or armour. Robert Hartwell "The Grumbling Grammarian" Fiske asserts in The Dictionary of Disagreeable English that the word "gantlet" (the form of punishment) has been incorrectly conflated with "gauntlet" (the medieval glove covered with metal plates) and should be used separately.
Read more about this topic: Gauntlet (punishment)
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)