take off one's gloves
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.87 in modern English
31
Scrabble Score
17
Letters
3
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To be unrestrained, especially in acting in a violent or punitive manner.
verb
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see take off, glove.
Example Sentences
- "The public's duty is to take the role of prosecutor in seeking out the truth: and we ought to roll up our sleeves, take off the gloves, and wade into action."
- "Ben-Gurion's self-restraint was soon exhausted and the British now took off their gloves to crush the Arabs by all and any means: they collectively punished villages and at one point destroyed a whole neighbourhood of Jaffa."
- "So, for example, in the midst of social tensions and manpower shortages in Britain (December 1916), David Lloyd George came to head a war regime which took off its gloves in handling the domestic unrest and keeping dissidents, like Siegfried Sassoon and his famous antiwar letter, out of the public eye."
- "The Court is willing to take off its gloves for the most serious infringements, however."