take up the gauntlet

English

Alternative forms

• take up the gantlet

Etymology

See throw down the gauntlet. (Cf. French relever le gant)

Pronunciation

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Verb

take up the gauntlet (third-person singular simple present takes up the gauntlet, present participle taking up the gauntlet, simple past took up the gauntlet, past participle taken up the gauntlet)

1. (idiomatic) To accept a challenge.

   He doesn't read Greek, but he took up the gauntlet and did his best to understand the letter, anyway.

   • 1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 99:

     It was they, the ones without rights or positions, who had taken up the Emperor Wilhelm's gauntlet.

Translations

accept a challenge

• Bulgarian: приемам предизвикателство (priemam predizvikatelstvo)
• Catalan: prendre el guant
• Finnish: ottaa haaste vastaan
• French: relever le gant (fr)
• Hebrew: הֵרִים אֶת הַכְּפָפָה (he) (herím et hakfafá)
• Indonesian: mengambil tantangan
• Italian: raccogliere il guanto
• Russian: подня́ть перчатку (podnjátʹ perčatku), приня́ть вы́зов (ru) (prinjátʹ výzov)
• Scottish Gaelic: rach cùrsa nan slat
• Spanish: recoger el guante