gauntlet

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 12, 2026 is:

gauntlet • \GAWNT-lut\  • noun

Gauntlet originally referred to a double file of men facing each other and armed with clubs or other weapons with which to strike at an individual made to run between them. It later gained an expanded sense referring to a line, series, or assemblage of people or things that poses some sort of ordeal, as in “faced a gauntlet of opponents to get to the championship.”

// Salmon returning to their spawning grounds must make it past a gauntlet of predators, from eagles to otters to bears.

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Examples:

“… I’m also a mother in my forties, which means daily life is a gauntlet of logistics: lunches, permission slips, orthodontist appointments, emotional squalls, school emails multiplying like fruit flies.” — Mira Ptacin, Literary Hub, 4 Feb. 2026

Did you know?

Gauntlet is often used today for a line, series, or assemblage of something that poses some sort of ordeal (as in “the celebs had to make it past a gauntlet of autograph-seekers”) but it originally referred to a trial of a particularly awful variety. In the not-so-golden days, a gauntlet was a military punishment in which a prisoner was made to pass between two rows of men armed with (and using) clubs or other weapons. The original word for the punishment in English was gantelope, from the Swedish gatlopp meaning, literally, “run down the lane.” Gantelope was a bit funny-sounding to the English ear, though, and through a process called folk etymology gantelope morphed into the already-familiar gauntlet. By the time gantelope had become gauntlet, an older gauntlet, referring to a protective glove worn with medieval armor, had been part of the language for about 200 years. (It comes from the Middle French word gantelet, a diminutive of gant, “glove.”)