drop the gloves
drop the gloves verb: to fight.
Verb
drop the gloves (third-person singular simple present drops the gloves, present participle dropping the gloves, simple past and past participle dropped the gloves)
- To fight.
- Nobody used to care when players such as John Ferguson, Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe and Maurice Richard dropped the gloves, because they could play the game, too.2007 March 27, Mike Brophy, “Getting rid of the goons”, in Globe and Mail, Canada, retrieved 14 Oct 2008
- To remove a prior impediment to action; to prepare for or engage in a dispute.
- But Bradley, who dropped the gloves on Gore in a combative debate Wednesday night and called the vice president chronically dishonest, ignored Sullivan's advice.2000 January 30, Thomas DeFrank et al., “George W. & Al Bank on Bubba”, in New York Daily News, retrieved 14 Oct 2008
Forms of drop the gloves
| third-person singular present | drops the gloves |
|---|---|
| present participle | dropping the gloves |
| past participle | dropped the gloves |
| past | dropped the gloves |
Origin of drop the gloves
From the practice of ice hockey players of removing their heavy gloves before striking blows in fistfights.
Questions about drop the gloves
- What does drop the gloves mean?
- Drop the gloves means to fight.
- What part of speech is drop the gloves?
- Drop the gloves is a verb.
- What is the past tense of drop the gloves?
- The past tense of drop the gloves is dropped the gloves.
Words near drop the gloves in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: drop the gloves (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-drop the gloves.ogg.
Cite this entry: “drop the gloves.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drop_the_gloves. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.