Word.ws English Dictionary

handle with kid gloves

handle with kid gloves verb: to treat (a person or a subject) very delicately or carefully, especially so as not to cause offense or controversy.

Verb

handle with kid gloves (third-person singular simple present handles with kid gloves, present participle handling with kid gloves, simple past and past participle handled with kid gloves)

  1. (idiomatic) To treat (a person or a subject) very delicately or carefully, especially so as not to cause offense or controversy.
    • The campaign staff cautioned the candidate to handle the issue with kid gloves.
    • He does not trifle with them, or handle them with kid gloves. No, he judges them to be the scum of the earth, and he treats them accordingly by putting them away.1884, C. H. Spurgeon, “Psalm One Hundred and Nineteen—Verses 113 to 120, Exposition”, in The Treasury of David: […], volume VI, London: Passmore and Alabaster, 4 paternoster Buildings, page 260

handle with kid gloves meaning in Vietnamese

handle with kid gloves in Vietnamese

to treat something very delicately
nhẹ tay

Synonyms of handle with kid gloves

Forms of handle with kid gloves

third-person singular presenthandles with kid gloves
present participlehandling with kid gloves
past participlehandled with kid gloves
pasthandled with kid gloves

Origin of handle with kid gloves

From kid glove.

Questions about handle with kid gloves

What does handle with kid gloves mean?
Handle with kid gloves means to treat (a person or a subject) very delicately or carefully, especially so as not to cause offense or controversy.
What is handle with kid gloves in Vietnamese?
Handle with kid gloves in Vietnamese is nhẹ tay. See Handle with kid gloves meaning in Vietnamese.
What part of speech is handle with kid gloves?
Handle with kid gloves is a verb.
What is the past tense of handle with kid gloves?
The past tense of handle with kid gloves is handled with kid gloves.

Words near handle with kid gloves in the dictionary

  1. handle
  2. handle oneself
  3. handle time
  4. handle times
  5. handle up
  6. handle with kid gloves
  7. handle without gloves
  8. handle without mittens
  9. handleabilities
  10. handleability
  11. handleable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: handle with kid 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-handle with kid gloves.ogg.

Cite this entry: “handle with kid gloves.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/handle_with_kid_gloves. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.