Mitts

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A garment designed to cover the hand while leaving the fingers together; a playful way of referring to hands in playful or sporty contexts; a lighthearted term that suggests awkwardness or fumbling associated with hand use
2. Gloves that cover the entire hand without separating the fingers, often used for warmth or protection ; a casual, humorous term for the hands, typically used in informal or sports settings
3. Hand coverings shaped to enclose fingers together as one unit, commonly worn for insulation or safety ; a slang phrase for hands, sometimes used to indicate clumsiness or playful roughness

Etymology: "Mitts" is the plural of "mitt," which is a clipping of "mitten." The shorter form is simply the longer word with its tail cut off, a process that turns up often in everyday English, where people trim familiar words for speed and ease. The full "mitten" carries its own history of having been a glove that leaves the fingers together in one covering, and the clipped version kept that sense while losing the syllables. Because the plural "mitts" is built on the clipped singular, the slang sense for hands and the idea of clumsiness or playful roughness grew out of the same glove-like image, with the hands imagined as sheathed in such coverings. The pairing of the everyday garment and the informal body-part sense is what makes the word feel so casual today.

Synonyms: gloves, handwear