Mitt

How to spell mitt

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce mitt

What does mitt mean?

1. nounA padded covering for the hand, such as one used to handle hot dishes or to catch a ball in sport.
2. nounAn informal word for a person's hand.

Mitt in a sentence

• He pulled a hot tray from the oven using a quilted mitt.

• He wiped his greasy mitt on a paper towel before answering the phone.

• The catcher held up his leather mitt to take the throw.

• Keep your sticky mitt off the freshly painted railing.

Where does mitt come from?

Language of origin: French

This is a shortened form of 'mitten', which English took from the Old French 'mitaine', a word for a glove or covering for the hand. The French term is thought to derive from 'mite', an old affectionate or pet name (and possibly a slang word for a cat), with the idea that a soft hand-covering resembled a furry paw. 'Mitten' had settled into English by the 1300s, and by the nineteenth century speakers were clipping it to the snappier 'mitt', especially for thick padded hand-coverings used in cooking and sport. The baseball sense, a padded fielder's glove, made the short form especially common in American English. The doubled 't' is worth noting, since the single vowel before it signals the short 'i' sound and mirrors the spelling of the parent word 'mitten'.

How the word is built

• mitt (clipped form of 'mitten', from Old French mitaine); the doubled -tt keeps the short 'i' vowel