to take up the gauntlet
1
8.1
- idiom
- Informal
:
aceptar el desafío
- The athlete vowed to take up the gauntlet by participating in the upcoming championship to prove his skills.
Examples
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And for the young man who took up the gauntlet to defend God's honor, and you know who you are, I can only imagine the smile you put on God's face.
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When the community faced criticism, the mayor chose to take up the gauntlet and address the concerns publicly.
-
One takes up the gauntlet and reads.
Academic text (1998) -
Rodrigo of Vivar, take up the gauntlet.
-
He has graciously turned the blog over to others to take up the gauntlet.
Blog text (10) -
While we have a bi-racial president, it is the boys and men in our neighborhoods who must take up the gauntlet to mentor and model for black boys.
Blog text (9) -
Then they took up the gauntlet as co-Creative Directors at Grossman & Roberts, a solid and established firm trying to upgrade its creative reputation.
Fiction book (2000) -
After the debate, she decided to take up the gauntlet and challenge her opponent to a rematch.
Synonyms
4
5.6
To deal with a difficult problem directly and bravely
3
3.2
To accept a difficult task to test yourself
1
6.3
Face a difficult problem directly and bravely
1
8.6
To accept a challenge and try to meet it
To face a difficult problem directly and work hard to solve it
Antonyms
How Willing
- Informal
1
8.1
6
4.2
405
2.8
793
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
If a learner already knows 'gauntlet' in its figurative sense of 'a challenge' and recognizes the phrasal sense 'take up' = 'accept', the overall meaning 'accept a challenge' is largely derivable from the parts. However, 'gauntlet' is low-frequency and the particle 'up' contributes a phrasal-verb meaning that is not transparently predicted from the isolated definitions of 'take' and 'up', so the expression has an idiomatic, partially non-transparent quality for a B1 learner.
Etymology
Take up the gauntlet comes from old times when knights would throw down a heavy glove—the gauntlet—to challenge someone, and picking it up meant you accepted the fight. So today it means 'to accept a challenge', usually in public or when someone dares you.