lay a glove on

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   To hit with a boxing glove.

   • “You were so good he couldn't lay a glove on you. You were terrific. He tired to hit you with his knockout punch but you skillfully avoided it - do you remember how his glove whistled harmlessly past your head?
   • In round three, Toxa moved in and out jabbing, scoring often with the bigger man unable to lay a glove on him.
   • Umbertino couldn't lay a glove on him. Big as he was, all it would have taken was a punch, a single roundhouse and he would have decked him. But the other guy was a grasshopper.
2. 2

   To physically touch, especially in a way that causes hurt.

   • The blinking headlights in his rearview mirror indicated the driver's anger at almost being sideswiped. “Oh, get a grip on yourself,” Dave groused as he continued accelerating. “I didn't even lay a glove on ya,” he giggled.
   • Moon was the soul of serene self-control. “He won't lay a glove on her, McTeague.” “How can you be so sure?” “Code of the West. No self-respecting frontier lawman will hit a woman.
3. 3

   To harm (someone's) reputation, to make an accusation stick.

   • It was more than an anticlimax: it was a triumph for the President. “They didn't lay a glove on him,” Robert Bennett, his lawyer, told me. “On a scale of one to ten, it was a fifteen.”
   • “The courts couldn't lay a glove on you, if that's what you did," said Silber.
   • Even Saturday Night Live, the scourge of President Ford, could hardly lay a glove on the “Teflon president.”
4. ›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer

   1. 4

      To match, to provide with meaningful competition or be able to handle.

      • And I was dubious because I thought the problem was so huge that no small amount of money that we would put in this bill would lay a glove on the problem.
      • His team did not think that their candidate was so likeable that Romney couldn't lay a glove on him. Quite the opposite.

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