Jacket

How to spell jacket

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce jacket

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does jacket mean?

1. nounA short outer garment worn on the upper body, usually opening at the front.
2. nounAn outer covering that protects or wraps something, such as a book cover or the skin of a baked potato.

Jacket in a sentence

• She zipped up her jacket before stepping into the cold rain.

• The dust jacket on the hardback was torn at the corner.

• He hung his suit jacket on the back of the office chair.

• She served a baked potato in its jacket with melted butter.

Where does jacket come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the Old French jaquet, a diminutive of jaque, which was a short, close-fitting tunic or padded military coat worn in the Middle Ages. The garment may have taken its name from Jacques, a very common French personal name that came to stand for the ordinary peasant or common man, so a jaque was loosely 'the everyman's coat'. English borrowed the word in the 1400s, keeping the diminutive ending that signalled a short, light upper garment as opposed to a long gown. Over the centuries the sense broadened from a soldier's quilted coat to any short outer garment, and then by extension to protective coverings such as a book jacket or the skin of a baked potato. The spelling stayed faithful to its French roots, which is why the soft 'j' and the -et ending survive intact today.

How the word is built

• jack (a man's name used for a common garment)
• -et (small, diminutive suffix)