Green’s Dictionary of Slang

mitten n.

1. usu. in pl., the hand, esp. the fist.

[Aus]Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 252: mittens the hands.
[UK]Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
[UK]Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 63: MITTENS, fists.
[UK]Hotten Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1859].
[US](con. 1940s) M. Dibner Admiral (1968) 152: A hell of a lot of good it does a guy with mittens like these.

2. (US) a rejection or dismissal; usu. in phrs. below.

[US]T. Haliburton Clockmaker III 156: Cuss them bad shillin’s, they are always a-comin’ back to you [...] for they won’t take the mitten if you do try to cut them.
[US]E. Eggleston Hoosier School-Master (1892) 86: Young men were timidly asking girls if ‘they could see them safe home,’ [...] and were trembling in mortal fear of ‘the mitten’.
[US]L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:iv 293: bounce, the (grand), n. phr. Summary dismissal; in love or matrimonial affairs, ‘the mitten’.

3. a boxing glove; usu. in pl.; thus mitten-mill n., a prize-fight.

[[UK]J. Phillips Maronides (1678) V 80: Quo he, now let him look to his hittings, / By Jove, I’le handle him without mittins].
[US]Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 10 Sept. n.p.: Harrington planted two good ones about Sprague’s bowels which if it had been without the mitten would have set them grumbling .
[Aus]Bell’s Life in Sydney 18 Oct. 2/4: Haddygaddy and the big-un put on the mittens.
[US]Broadway Belle (NY) 5 Mar. n.p.: to the young sparring fraternity. All young aspirants of the ‘mittens’ should read our article upon the art of ‘Self Defence’.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Mar. 14/2: While Donald Dinnie and Graham were on the war-path in the back-blocks, rumours by the score used to reach Sydney as to the manner in which the pair said they could chaw up Larry Foley, either with or without the ‘mittens;’ Graham going so far, it was alleged, as to state that he could put our champion through with one hand only.
[US]Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 4 Mar. 2/1: The colored folks are going to pummel each other with the mittens again shortly .
[Aus]W. Aus. Sun. Times 24 Sept. 7/2: Bill Bludger was the games bloke / That ever donned a mitten.
[UK]Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
[UK]Sporting Times 28 Feb. 7/4: After the banging of the mittens, the merry joanna will resound [and] several skilled folks will smite the ivories.
[Aus]Sun. Times (Perth) 24 Jan. 2/6: Mick Murphy again intends donning the mittens. He is billed to meet Paddy M’Mahon.
[UK]Marvel 3 Mar. 7: Fight it out with the mittens.
[UK](con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 207: I am ready to make up for it by a bout with the mittens.
[US]Christopher ‘Battling’ Battalino in Heller In This Corner (1974) 148: Took my mittens and I hung ’em up.

4. a handcuff; usu. in pl.

[UK]Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 743/1: –1933.

5. (US Und.) a knuckle duster.

[US](con. 1920s) G. Fowler Schnozzola 49: The callers were nasty-tempered fellows, expert in the use of ‘Tammany mittens,’ as the boys say when speaking of brass knuckles.

In compounds

mitten mill (n.)

(Aus.) a prizefight, using gloves rather than bare knuckles.

[Aus]C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 49: Mitten Mill, a glove fight.

In phrases

get the mitten (v.)

1. (US) to be turned down as a suitor, to be rejected.

Ladies’ Museum 1 Oct. 38/1: HE’S GOT THE MITTEN. Much is expressed in this short sentence. It tells of hopes withered, and dreams of happiness fled and gone, perhaps forever.
[US]New Yorker 2 July 227/1: The conversation turned upon courting. ‘Well,’ said honest Jack, ’ I never got the mitten but once in my life’.
[US]J.C. Neal Peter Ploddy and Other Oddities 14: Young gentlemen that have got the mitten, or young gentlemen who think they are going to get the mitten.
[US]O.W. Holmes Autocrat of the Breakfast Table 339: A cheaply got-up youth [...] laughed at by the girls in his village [...] ‘got the mitten’.
[US]Ariz. Citizen (Tucson, AZ) 13 May 1/2: Not braver he that leaps the wall / [...] / Than I, who stepped before them all / Who longed to see me get the mitten. / But no, she blushed and took my arm!
[Aus]Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 6: To ‘get the Mitten’ is to be jilted.
[US]Dodge City Times (KS) 12 Apr. 3/3: Now I shall have to do it all over again, and may be get the mitten.
[US]Lippincott’s Monthly Mag. (Phila.) Aug. 241: Popped the question, and got the mitten [F&H].
Ohio Democrat (Logan, OH) 15 Apr. 6/3: An old-time New England expression, ‘getting the mitten’, meaning getting your offer of marriage rejected by your ‘best girl’.
[US]St Louis Republican (MO) 2 Mar. 48/4: I makes a bid for two or three but gets the mitten.
[US]Ocala Eve. Star (FL) 21 Jan. 1/4: Marconi Gets the Mitten [...] Mrs M.E. Holman announced this morning the breaking of the engagement of Miss J. Holman to Marconi.
[US]‘O. Henry’ ‘The Caliph, Cupid and the Clock’ in Four Million (1915) 193: I’ve got the mitten instead of the scarf.
[US]B.L. Bowen ‘Word-List From Western New York’ in DN III:vi 445: mitten, n. ‘To get the mitten,’ to have one’s suit rejected.
[US]Day Book (Chicago) 27 Mar. 25/1: Harry Farnham has got ‘yes’ from Miss Viola Truman, after sparking her for eleven years and getting the mitten 1,000 times.
[US]Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl.
[US]C. Woofter ‘Dialect Words and Phrases from West-Central West Virginia’ in AS II:8 360: The boys all got the mitten at Three Poplars last night.
[Aus]N. Lindsay Redheap (1965) 90: ‘The trouble is a man has to be careful, as he may get the mitten should he obtrude too far in the so-called ‘delicacies’’ .

2. (US campus) to be expelled from a college.

[US]B.H. Hall College Words (rev. edn) 324: mitten. [...] a student who is expelled is said to get the mitten.

3. to be dismissed from employment.

[UK]Punch 1 Mar. 108/2: Lifeboat hands who are found shrinking, Or with fear of danger smitten, Get, not medals, but the mitten [F&H].
give someone the mitten (v.)

(US) to reject a proposal of marriage, to end a relationship; to turn down any request.

R. Lockwood Insurgents 99: If I was in her place, I guess I’d give him the mitten ’bout the quickest.
[US]S. Wyman Life and Adventures 39: The girl, on hearing of this, gave me the mitten [...] It did not suit me very well but it did not hinder my going with another girl within the next twenty-four hours.
[US]Bartlett Dict. Americanisms 156: to give him the mitten. This phrase is used of a girl who discards her sweetheart. She gave him the mitten means that she gave her lover his dismissal or discarded him.
[US]C.L. Canfield Diary of a Forty-Niner (1906) 95: She is telling everybody that she has given me the mitten.
[US]J.F. Brobst letter in Brobst Well Mary, Civil War Letters 20: Too bad for Elsie [...] she had no business to give me the mitten then.
O.W. Holmes Guardian Angel 370: Some said that Susan had given her young man the mitten, meaning thereby that she had signified that his services as a suitor were dispensed with.
[UK] ‘’Arry on the ’Igher Education of Women’ in Punch 5 Apr. in P. Marks (2006) 151: Yus, she gave me the mitten.
[Aus]Dead Bird (Sydney) 16 Nov. 2/4: I want you to understand that [...] my daughter has given you the mitten.
[US]F. Harris Elder Conklin and Other Stories (1895) 4: ‘What does “giving the mitten” mean?’ he questioned [...] ‘Why, jest the plainest kind of refusal, I guess.’.
[US]P.G. McLean ‘A Long Shot’ Variety Stage Eng. Plays 🌐 The beautiful Lady Immerset has given Billy Smith the mitten.
[UK]A. Binstead More Gal’s Gossip 74: I told you in my last how she gave the athletic stockbroker at Hove the mitten.
[UK]J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 176/2: Mitten (Amer., Hist.). Refusal of marriage by a lady. ‘She gave him the mitten.’.
[UK]Wodehouse ‘Noblesse Oblige’ in Young Men in Spats 183: [of a requested loan] Was he to hand the callous mitten to the only one of those six hundred and forty-seven [fellow-pupils] who had admired him .
[UK]J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 394: She had given him the mitten (as she put it) when he first proposed. But he persisted.
tip someone the mitten (v.)

to dismiss from a job.

[UK] ‘’Arry on Commercial Education’ in Punch 26 Sept. in P. Marks (2006) 123: The Boss tipped me the mitten next day.