gloves

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of glove.

   Thick leather gloves protected the welder's hands from sparks.

   He left his gloves on the train and froze all the way home.

   Note

   The plural is regular, made with -s and no change to the stem, and it serves the garment, the baseball mitt and the slang sense alike. The challenge sense works differently: it is tied to the definite article and the singular, so gloves rarely carries it. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb, as in a fielder who gloves the ball. A determiner or a pair of marks the noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of glove.

   The shortstop gloves the grounder cleanly and fires it to first base.

   He always gloves his hands before splitting firewood in the cold.

   Note

   This form takes an object in each of its uses: a shortstop gloves a grounder, and someone splitting firewood gloves his hands. Baseball supplies the catching use, and cricket has its own. A batsman who gloves a delivery has touched it with the gloved hand while that hand is on the bat, and under the rules he is deemed to have hit it.

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