"gloves are off" meaning in All languages combined

See gloves are off on Wiktionary

Phrase [English]

Etymology: One possible etymology comes from the sport of boxing, where competitors fistfight wearing padded gloves; removing the gloves during a fight could result in serious physical injury. Another comes from the trend of gentlemen wearing gloves as part of their outfit; these gloves would often be taken off before engaging in rough behavior. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} gloves are off
  1. Expressing that people are arguing or competing without regard to their actions or each other's feelings. Synonyms: gloves come off Related terms: knockdown-dragout, take off one's gloves, the knives are out Related terms (in an uncontrolled or difficult situation): when push comes to shove, when the chips are down, in a pinch
    Sense id: en-gloves_are_off-en-phrase-dejUIWCR Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry
{
  "etymology_text": "One possible etymology comes from the sport of boxing, where competitors fistfight wearing padded gloves; removing the gloves during a fight could result in serious physical injury. Another comes from the trend of gentlemen wearing gloves as part of their outfit; these gloves would often be taken off before engaging in rough behavior.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "gloves are off",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The gloves are off in this match; both teams are purposely committing fouls against opposing players!",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 October 18, Mel Holley, “Network News: Harper attacks Labour over strikes... but unions hit back”, in RAIL, number 994, page 18:",
          "text": "The gloves were off at the Conservative Party annual conference in Manchester on October 2, with Secretary of State for Transport Mark Harper spending much of his speech attacking Labour and the unions.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Expressing that people are arguing or competing without regard to their actions or each other's feelings."
      ],
      "id": "en-gloves_are_off-en-phrase-dejUIWCR",
      "links": [
        [
          "arguing",
          "argue"
        ],
        [
          "competing",
          "compete"
        ],
        [
          "action",
          "action"
        ],
        [
          "feeling",
          "feeling"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "sense": "in an uncontrolled or difficult situation",
          "word": "when push comes to shove"
        },
        {
          "sense": "in an uncontrolled or difficult situation",
          "word": "when the chips are down"
        },
        {
          "sense": "in an uncontrolled or difficult situation",
          "word": "in a pinch"
        },
        {
          "word": "knockdown-dragout"
        },
        {
          "word": "take off one's gloves"
        },
        {
          "word": "the knives are out"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "gloves come off"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "gloves are off"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "One possible etymology comes from the sport of boxing, where competitors fistfight wearing padded gloves; removing the gloves during a fight could result in serious physical injury. Another comes from the trend of gentlemen wearing gloves as part of their outfit; these gloves would often be taken off before engaging in rough behavior.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "gloves are off",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "sense": "in an uncontrolled or difficult situation",
      "word": "when push comes to shove"
    },
    {
      "sense": "in an uncontrolled or difficult situation",
      "word": "when the chips are down"
    },
    {
      "sense": "in an uncontrolled or difficult situation",
      "word": "in a pinch"
    },
    {
      "word": "knockdown-dragout"
    },
    {
      "word": "take off one's gloves"
    },
    {
      "word": "the knives are out"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "Pages with 1 entry"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The gloves are off in this match; both teams are purposely committing fouls against opposing players!",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 October 18, Mel Holley, “Network News: Harper attacks Labour over strikes... but unions hit back”, in RAIL, number 994, page 18:",
          "text": "The gloves were off at the Conservative Party annual conference in Manchester on October 2, with Secretary of State for Transport Mark Harper spending much of his speech attacking Labour and the unions.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Expressing that people are arguing or competing without regard to their actions or each other's feelings."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "arguing",
          "argue"
        ],
        [
          "competing",
          "compete"
        ],
        [
          "action",
          "action"
        ],
        [
          "feeling",
          "feeling"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "gloves come off"
    }
  ],
  "word": "gloves are off"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-09-22 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-09-20 using wiktextract (af5c55c and 66545a6). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.