jacket

English Online Dictionary. What means jacket‎? What does jacket mean?

English

Etymology

From Middle French jacquet, diminutive of Old French jaque.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒæk.ɪt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒækɪt/, /ˈd͡ʒækət/
• Rhymes: -ækɪt
• Hyphenation: jack‧et

Noun

jacket (plural jackets)

1. A piece of clothing worn on the upper body outside a shirt or blouse, often waist length to thigh length.
2. A piece of a person's suit, beside trousers and, sometimes, waistcoat; coat (US)
3. A protective or insulating cover for an object (e.g. a book, hot water tank, bullet.)
4. (slang) A police record.
   • 2014, Inherent Vice, 01:54:00:

     "I need to look up somebody's jacket."

5. (military) In ordnance, a strengthening band surrounding and reinforcing the tube in which the charge is fired.
6. The tough outer skin of a baked potato.

   Cook the potatoes in their jackets.

7. (Jamaica) A bastard child, in particular one whose father is unaware that they are not the child’s biological father.
8. (Appalachia) A vest(US); a waistcoat (UK)

Synonyms

• (piece of a person's suit): coat (US)
• (removable protective cover): sleeve

Derived terms

Descendants

Translations

Verb

jacket (third-person singular simple present jackets, present participle jacketing, simple past and past participle jacketed)

1. To confine (someone) to a straitjacket. [from 18th c.]
   • 1792, Thomas Holcroft, Anna St. Ives, vol. VII, ‘Fragment’:

     ‘None of your gab, I tell you! If you speak another word, I'll have you jacketed […] !’

2. (transitive) To enclose or encase in a jacket or other covering. [from 19th c.]

Derived terms

• bad-jacket
• snitch-jacket

Translations