kid glove

From kid gloves (made from the skin of a young lamb or goat), a particularly fine, soft material.

kid glove (plural kid gloves)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see kid,‎ glove.
   • 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter V, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:

     As he saw her hands in their old black kid gloves getting the silver out of the worn purse, his heart contracted with pain of love of her.

   • 1915, Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out, London: The Hogarth Press, published 1949, →OCLC:

     By degrees the room grew perceptibly hotter. The smell of kid gloves mingled with the strong scent of flowers.

2. (figurative, usually in the plural) A metaphorical representation of careful handling.

   to handle with kid gloves

   He's usually very sensitive about this sort of thing; make sure you put on your kid gloves before you see him.

   • 2005, Jeffrey John Kripal, Glenn W. Shuck, On the Edge of the Future: Esalen and the Evolution of American Culture, page 154:

     His friend Penny Vieregge provided a glimpse into his actual experience when she described the "incredible fragility" in Dick at the time, "like fine, fine, porcelain. . . . I wanted to put on kid gloves and be there in case the shattering came."

   • 2008, Barbie Jones, The Power to Choose - A Victim No More, page 44:

     This time around the enemy took off the kid gloves. He saw that his previous plans to destroy me had failed. Instead of sending boys to do a man's job, he sent a man that he knew would win me over.

   • 2009, In The Loop, BBC Films:

     Malcolm: Be gentle with them.
     Jamie: Oh, you know me Malc. Kid gloves, but made from real kids.

   • 2023 March 15, Kevin Roose, “GPT-4 Is Exciting and Scary”, in The New York Times‎:

     Unlike Bing, GPT-4 usually flat-out refused to take the bait when I tried to get it to talk about consciousness, or get it to provide instructions for illegal or immoral activities, and it treated sensitive queries with kid gloves and nuance.

• handle with kid gloves
• kid-glove