lay a glove on

English

Etymology

From the sport of boxing, referring to managing to hit someone with one's boxing glove.

Verb

lay a glove on (third-person singular simple present lays a glove on, present participle laying a glove on, simple past and past participle laid a glove on)

1. (boxing) To hit with a boxing glove.
   • 2004, Morris Katz, The Journey, →ISBN, page 78:

     “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?

   • 2012, Roland Perry, The Changi Brownlow, →ISBN:

     In round three, Toxa moved in and out jabbing, scoring often with the bigger man unable to lay a glove on him.

   • 2014, Davide Enia, On Earth as It Is in Heaven: A Novel, →ISBN, page 42:

     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. (chiefly in the negative) To physically touch, especially in a way that causes hurt.
   • 2003, Bob Weir, Short Stories of Life and Death: Complexities of the Human Experience, →ISBN:

     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.

   • 2005, Jean Minton, In the Ruins, →ISBN, page 23:

     “No, you needn't worry, Peres,” he'd gone on. “I wouldn't lay a glove on you. I've been meaning to tell you; you're really not my type at all. I just didn't want...Well, you know—your self-esteem and all that. You can understand, can't you?”

   • 2007, James D. Doss, Stone Butterfly: A Charlie Moon Mystery, →ISBN:

     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.

   • 2011, Pat G'Orge-Walker, No Ordinary Noel, →ISBN, page 196:

     I told him not to lay a glove on you, but do like Beyoncé said, and lay a ring on you instead.

3. (by extension) To harm (someone's) reputation, to make an accusation stick.
   • 2003, Sidney Blumenthal, The Clinton Wars, →ISBN:

     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.”

   • 2012, Ronald P. Formisano, Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s, →ISBN:

     “The courts couldn't lay a glove on you, if that's what you did," said Silber.

   • 2013, Tevi Troy, What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted, →ISBN, page 144:

     Even Saturday Night Live, the scourge of President Ford, could hardly lay a glove on the “Teflon president.”

   • 2014, Jim Ore, Crime is Everywhere, →ISBN, page 148:

     But if you say absolutely nothing they can't just keep you inside and do nothing with you. No feedback from you and they have nothing to lay a glove on you with and have to let you go sometime.

4. To match, to provide with meaningful competition or be able to handle.
   • 1994, United States Congress House Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs, Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related:

     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.

   • 2014, David Horowitz, Take No Prisoners: The Battle Plan for Defeating the Left, →ISBN:

     His team did not think that their candidate was so likeable that Romney couldn't lay a glove on him. Quite the opposite.

   • 2018 January 28, Dafydd Pritchard, “Cardiff City 1 - 1 Manchester City”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     Warnock described City as the best team in Europe in the build-up to this match and joked that his players had been preparing for the game - and City's inevitable dominance - by training without a ball.
     It proved to be a prescient quip, as the home side had to toil for long periods, struggling to lay a glove on their stylish opponents.