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Reader question: Please explain this sentence: “So the gloves are off now in the battle for power in Egypt.” Particularly “the gloves”, what gloves?” My comments: First of all, the gloves in “the gloves are off” refer to gloves that boxers wear in a match. The sentence means that things are turning ugly in Egypt. People are taking their gloves off in the battle for political power. You know, if they were all boxers, they were taking off their gloves and fighting with their bare fists. In other words, they’re not minding moral scruples any more. They will do any unthinkable thing to grab power to run that country. That’s a terrible thing to say, I know. But since we’re talking about people battling for political power, I think it’s not terribly off the mark or inappropriate to say something like that. Anyways, let’s turn to talk a bit more about the idiom “the gloves are off”. If you’ve watched any boxing match on TV, you must have seen the thick heavy gloves that boxers wear. The gloves are made of leather and padded with foam. They look bloated and kind of soft. That’s the idea. By design, the gloves are thus made in order to soften the blow when they land on a player’s head or body. One’s boxing prowess, you see, is measured by the hits he (or she, as more and more women have joined the fray) lands on the opponent, not by how hard and hurtful each punch is, especially in amateur boxing. | 
