kid glove

noun

1. a glove made of kid leather.

kid glove

noun

1. a glove made of kidskin
2. handle with kid gloves
   handle with kid gloves to treat with great tact or caution

adjective

1. overdelicate or overrefined
2. diplomatic; tactful

   a kidglove approach

Word History and Origins

Origin of kid glove¹

First recorded in 1705–15

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

1. handle with kid gloves, to treat with extreme tact or gentleness:

   He's upset, so handle him with kid gloves today.

Example Sentences

I am from a culture where women are treated with kid gloves and not usually yelled at by strange men.

From Washington Post

Apart from their immense natural beauty, perhaps one of the most exhilarating things about the national parks is that they do not treat visitors with kid gloves.

From Outside Online

Candidates from both parties each handled the issue with the kind of kid gloves you rarely see on this issue — perhaps reflecting the extremely sensitive and unwieldy politics of the moment.

From Washington Post

Daisy Shaw knocked quickly on the front window with her little, nervous hand in its tight, white kid glove.

From Project Gutenberg

Properly withered leaf should be as flexible as a soft kid glove.

From Project Gutenberg

No wonder he wrote bitter words of the kid-glove geographers, who criticized him, and the press that jeered at him.

From Project Gutenberg

And now he was dangling a new, black kid glove in front of her.

From Project Gutenberg

A splendid story of the political game, with a son of the soil on the one side, and a “kid glove” politician on the other.

From Project Gutenberg