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Gamut vs Gauntlet - What's the difference?

gamut | gauntlet |

As nouns the difference between gamut and gauntlet

is that gamut is gamut (colour range available to a monitor or printer) while gauntlet is protective armor for the hands or gauntlet can be (archaic) two parallel rows of attackers who strike at a criminal as punishment.

gamut

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A (normally) complete range.
  • * 19?? , (Dorothy Parker), review of (Katharine Hepburn) in the Broadway play (The Lake)
  • She delivered a striking performance that ran the gamut of emotions, from A to B.
  • * 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), Chapter 2
  • The entire gamut of the view's changes should have been known to her; its winter aspect, spring, summer and autumn; how storms came up from the sea; how the moors shuddered and brightened as the clouds went over; she should have noted the red spot where the villas were building; and the criss-cross of lines where the allotments were cut...
  • (music) All the notes in the musical scale.
  • All the colours available to a device such as a monitor or printer.
  • Derived terms

    * run the gamut

    References

    gauntlet

    Alternative forms

    * gantlet

    Etymology 1

    (etyl) "glove", also gantelet, from (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Protective armor for the hands.
  • * 1786 , Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons , page 22:
  • The hands were defended by Gauntlets, these were sometimes of chain mail, but oftener of small plates of iron rivetted together, in imitation of the lobster's tail, so as to yield every motion of the hand, some gauntlets inclosed the whole hand, as in a box or case, others were divided into fingers, each finger consisting of eight or ten separate pieces, the inside gloved with buff leather, some of these reached no higher than the wrist, others to the elbow; the latter were stiled long armed gauntlets: many of them are to be seen in the Tower; for a representation of one of them, see plate 26, fig 6.
  • (nautical) A rope on which hammocks or clothes are hung for drying.
  • Derived terms
    * to take up the gauntlet * to throw down the gauntlet

    See also

    *

    Etymology 2

    From (gantlope), from (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (archaic) Two parallel rows of attackers who strike at a criminal as punishment
  • Simultaneous attack from two or more sides
  • (figuratively) Any challenging, difficult, or painful ordeal, often one performed for atonement or punishment
  • (rail) A temporary convergence of two parallel railroad tracks allowing passage through a narrow opening in each direction without switching.
  • Derived terms
    * running the gauntlet