kid gloveとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From kid gloves (made from the skin of a young lamb または goat), a particularly fine, soft material.

名詞

kid glove (複数形 kid gloves)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see kid,‎ glove.
   • 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter V, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:

     As he saw her hands in their old black kid gloves getting the silver out of the worn purse, his heart contracted with pain of love of her.

   • 1915, Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out, London: The Hogarth Press, published 1949, →OCLC:

     By degrees the room grew perceptibly hotter. The smell of kid gloves mingled with the strong scent of flowers.

2. (figurative, usually in the plural) A metaphorical representation of careful handling.

   to handle with kid gloves

   He's usually very sensitive about this sort of thing; make sure you put on your kid gloves before you see him.

   • 2005, Jeffrey John Kripal, Glenn W. Shuck, On the Edge of the Future: Esalen and the Evolution of American Culture, page 154:

     His friend Penny Vieregge provided a glimpse into his actual experience when she described the "incredible fragility" in Dick at the time, "like fine, fine, porcelain. . . . I wanted to put on kid gloves and be there in case the shattering came."

   • 2008, Barbie Jones, The Power to Choose - A Victim No More, page 44:

     This time around the enemy took off the kid gloves. He saw that his previous plans to destroy me had failed. Instead of sending boys to do a man's job, he sent a man that he knew would win me over.

   • 2009, In The Loop, BBC Films:

     Malcolm: Be gentle with them.
     Jamie: Oh, you know me Malc. Kid gloves, but made from real kids.

   • 2023 March 15, Kevin Roose, “GPT-4 Is Exciting and Scary”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Unlike Bing, GPT-4 usually flat-out refused to take the bait when I tried to get it to talk about consciousness, or get it to provide instructions for illegal or immoral activities, and it treated sensitive queries with kid gloves and nuance.

派生語

• handle with kid gloves
• kid-glove

形容詞

kid-glove (not comparable)

1. Marked by extreme care or sensitivity.

   kid-glove handling

   • 1929 June 24, quoting Charles G. Dawes, “National Affairs”, in Time, volume 13, number 25, page 11:

     “Hell’s bells, no!” said the discreetly indiscreet Ambassador. “I’m a diplomat now. I've got to don kid glove manners.”

   • 1995 August, Celia Farber, “AIDS: Words from the Front”, in Spin, ISSN 0886-3032, page 89:

     Specifically, Lang and others complain that while the journal has printed many negative articles about HIV skeptics, the orthodoxy has received kid-glove treatment.

動詞

kid-glove (三人称単数 現在形 kid-gloves, 現在分詞 kid-gloving, 過去形および過去分詞形 kid-gloved)

1. (transitive) To treat mildly.
   • 1943, Hon. Clare E. Hoffman, “Better Late Than Never”, in Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 78th Congress, volume 89, United States Government Printing Office, page A3226:

     It is the policy of the politician to avoid trouble, to soft pedal on principle so that votes will not be lost. But, as day follows night, kid-gloving criminals leads to anarchy.

   • 2001, Jamie O'Neill, At Swim, Two Boys, Scribner, →ISBN, page 491:

     ‘They're all pro-German. We should shoot the leaders, pack the rest off to France. In my opinion, there is too much kid-gloving in this country.’