Gauntlet, less correctly GANTLET (formed with double diminutives from Old Fr. gant, 'a glove,' itself a word of Scandinavian origin), an iron glove, which formed part of the armour of knights and men-at-arms. The back of the hand was covered with plates jointed together, so as to permit the hand to close. Gauntlets were introduced about the 13th century. They were often thrown down by way of challenge, like gloves. They are of frequent occurrence in heraldry.
In the phrase 'to run the gantlet,' the word is due to a confusion with the foregoing of the original word gantlope or gatlope, the Swedish gatlopp, made up of gata, 'a street,' and lopp, 'a course,' from löpa, 'to run'—a cognate of Eng. leap. Professor Skeat suggests that the word may be due to the wars of Gustavus Adolphus, who died at Lützen in 1632. The German form is gassenlaufen, 'lane-run,' both alike meaning a military punishment, which consisted in making the culprit, naked to the waist, pass repeatedly through a lane formed of two rows of soldiers, each of whom gives him a stroke as he passes with a short stick or other similar weapon.