Treat someone with kid gloves

Origin of: Treat someone with kid gloves

Treat someone with kid gloves

To treat or handle someone with kid gloves is to treat them with the utmost gentleness and care and the expression dates in this sense from the early 19th century. Gloves made from kid leather, the skin of young goats, were and still are a high fashion item because of their softness, hence the allusion to attending to someone as if one was wearing such gloves.