Jacket — From Middle French to English | etymologist.ai
jacket
/ˈdʒækɪt/·noun·c. 1451, Middle English 'jaket', in reference to a short military or working coat·Established
Origin
From Hebrew patriarch to French peasant nickname to English garment, 'jacket' traces through Greek Iakōbos and Latin Jacobus to Old French jaque — a tunic named after Jacques, the generic term for a French peasant — arriving in English around 1440 as a short outer coat.
Definition
A short coat extending to the hips, typically with sleeves and a front opening, worn as an outer garment.
The Full Story
Middle French15th centurywell-attested
TheEnglishword 'jacket' derives from Middle French 'jaquette', a diminutive of 'jaque', denoting a short garment or coat. The French 'jaque' is itself of personal-name origin: it derives from 'Jacques', the French form of the name James (Latin 'Jacobus', Hebrew 'Ya'aqov'). The garment was associated in medieval France with peasant laborers and common soldiers
Did you know?
Theword 'jacket' is etymologically a name — specifically the name Jacques, French for James, which had become so associated with the peasant class that it simply meant 'common laborer.' When Englishborrowed jaquette in the 1440s, it was borrowing a garment named after a stereotype. The same root gives English the word 'Jacquerie,' the 1358 French peasant revolt — meaning
laborers. Over the following centuries the semantic range broadened: by the 16th century 'jacket' covered various short outer garments, and by the 18th–19th centuries it extended further to protective or functional coverings of non-textile kinds (e.g., a 'jacket' of a potato, a 'life jacket', a 'dust jacket'). The personal-name etymology places 'jacket' outside the Indo-European root system proper — 'Jacques' / 'James' comes from Latin 'Jacobus' from Greek 'Iakobos' from Hebrew 'Ya'aqov', meaning 'he who supplants' or 'holder of the heel', a Semitic name with no reconstructable PIE root. Key roots: Ya'aqov (Hebrew: "he who supplants or grasps the heel — the personal name Jacob, source of Jacques/James"), Jacobus (Latin: "Latinised form of Greek Iakobos, from Hebrew Ya'aqov; gave rise to James, Jacques, Jack"), jaque / jaquette (Middle French: "short coat; derived from the generic peasant name Jacques, reflecting medieval class associations").