Meaning & use
Gantlet
Last updated
A punishment or ordeal in which a person is forced to run between two rows of people who strike at them, or a section of railway track where two lines overlap without a full switch.
See it in a sentence
New recruits once had to run the gantlet as a brutal military hazing ritual.
The rail yard used a gantlet track to save space where two lines converged.
A note on using this word
Often confused with 'gauntlet' (a glove); 'run the gantlet' is the historically correct spelling for the ordeal, though 'gauntlet' is now far more common in that idiom.
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