Merriam-Webster's Word Central

June 28, 2011

mitt (noun): \MIT\
What does it mean?: : a baseball catcher's or first baseman's glove
How do you use it?: Once summer arrived, I dug my catcher's mitt out of the garage, cleaned it up, and spent the mornings playing ball.
Are you a word wiz?: Where do you think we got the word "mitt" from?

A. from the name of the man who first wore a catcher's mitt

B. from the word "mitten"

C. from the Latin verb "mittere," meaning "to send"

D. from the fictional character Walter Mitty, a daydreaming hero

Pat yourself on the back if you chose B. "Mitt" first entered the English language in the mid-1700s as a shortened form of "mitten." The first mitts were not baseball mitts, but ladies' fingerless gloves. By the early 1800s, "mitt" was used of mittens as well, and by the late 1800s, the protective gloves used in baseball were called "mitts." "Mitt" gained another sense in the late 1800s -- it came to mean "hand," as in "Get your mitts off of me!" This last sense, though it has been around for over 100 years, is still considered slang.