The word – גרביים – socks – was invented for Modern Hebrew by borrowing from Arabic. כפפות – gloves – also first appeared in Hebrew only in the modern era, but the word has a biblical origin: כף appears in the holy texts as palm or hand.
In the singular, כפפות becomes כפפה, as in:
היא מתאימה לו כמו כפפה ליד.
She fits him like a glove (to the hand).
Beyond תא כפפות – a glove compartment – another useful expression using כפפה is להרים את הכפפה – “to take up the gauntlet,” to decide to do something even though it poses a challenge. It literally means, “to lift the glove.”
For example:
היא הרימה את הכפפה וסיימה לכתוב את כל התיזה תוך שבועיים.
She took up the gauntlet and finished writing the entire thesis within two weeks.
