A glove may be a garment covering the hand.Gloves are made from materials including cloth, knitted or felted wool, leather, rubber, latex, neoprene, silk, and metal (as in mail). Gloves of kevlar protect the wearer from cuts. Gloves and gauntlets are integral components of pressure suits and spacesuits like the Apollo/Skylab A7L which visited the Moon. Spacesuit gloves combine toughness and environmental protection with a degree of sensitivity and adaptability .

Gloves usually have separate sheaths or openings for every finger and therefore the thumb. If there's a gap but no (or a short) covering sheath for every finger they're called fingerless gloves. Fingerless gloves having one small opening instead of individual openings for every finger are sometimes called gauntlets, though gauntlets aren't necessarily fingerless.

Fingerless gloves are useful where dexterity is required that gloves would restrict. Cigarette smokers and church organists sometimes use fingerless gloves. Some gloves include a gauntlet that extends partway up the arm. Cycling gloves for road racing or touring are usually fingerless. Guitar players can also use fingerless gloves in circumstances where it's too cold to play with an uncovered hand.

Gloves which cover the whole hand or fist but don't have separate finger openings or sheaths are called mittens. Mittens are warmer than other sorts of gloves made from an equivalent material because fingers maintain their warmth better once they are in touch with each other; reduced area reduces heat loss.

Gloves protect and luxury hands against cold or heat, damage by friction, abrasion or chemicals, and disease; or successively to supply a guard for what a bare hand shouldn't touch. Latex, nitrile rubber or vinyl disposable gloves are often worn by health care professionals as hygiene and contamination protection measures. cops often wear them to figure in crime scenes to stop destroying evidence within the scene. Many criminals wear gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, which makes the crime investigation harder . However, the gloves themselves can leave prints that are even as unique as human fingerprints. After collecting glove prints, enforcement can then match them to gloves that they need collected as evidence. In many jurisdictions the act of wearing gloves itself while committing a criminal offense are often prosecuted as an inchoate offense.