gloue

n.

Gaw pl. glouez; WA pl. gloues

'gauntlet, glove' (Modern English glove)

Etymology

Most derive simply from OE glōf (str. fem.), but MED suggests ON input (cp. OIcel glófi ‘glove’ (wk. masc.)), perhaps to help account for the wk. variants of the word (with -en pl.) in ME; wk. forms are known in OE (mostly classified by DOE as wk. fem. glōfe, and more rarely as masc. glōfa), but mainly in later prose and glosses.  Alternation between str. and wk. classes is, however, hardly unusual in words of native descent, as this most likely is. The English and Scandinavian words are the only recorded derivations on the PGmc root *glōf-, and their wider etymology is obscure; *glōf- has more or less tentatively been derived from *ga-lōf-, cp. Go lōfa ‘palm of the hand’, OIcel lóf (so Kroonen), but this is far from clear.

PGmc Ancestor

*glōf-

Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)

glófi ‘glove’ 
(ONP glofi (sb.))

Other Scandinavian Reflexes

Far glógvi, Icel glófi, Sw dial glovatang

OE Cognate

glōf 'glove, pouch'

Phonological and morphological markers

Summary category

CCC1

Attestation

Common and widespread from early ME.

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

Gaw 583, 1799, 1807; WA 1984, 2767, 4959

The WA occurrences include neþire ~nethir ~ 'shoes', sometimes printed as one word.

Bibliography

MED glōve (n.) , OED glove (n.) , HTOED , HTOED , Dance gloue, de Vries glófi, Mag. glófi, Orel *ʒlōfō(n), Kroonen *lōfan- ~ *lappan-, AEW glōf(e), DOE glōf, glōfe, glōfa