Gilet

//ˈʒiːleɪ// name, noun

name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A waistcoat worn by a man. historical
  2. 2
    A bodice worn by a woman similar to a man's waistcoat; also, a decorative panel at the front of such a bodice, or worn separately. historical
  3. 3
    A sleeveless jacket resembling a waistcoat but generally closed at the neck; specifically, one which is padded to provide warmth. broadly
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname, variant of Gillette

Synonyms

All synonyms
bodywarmer

Example

More examples

"A gilet is a jacket without arms."

Etymology

Borrowed from French gilet (“vest, waistcoat”), from regional Italian gileccu (Calabria), gilecco (Genoa), gelecco (Naples), ggileccu (Sicily), etc. (standard Italian gilè is borrowed from French), from Turkish yelek (“jelick; vest, waistcoat”) (ultimately from Proto-Turkic *yẹl (“wind”, noun)) with the final syllable modified to match other types of clothing such as corselet and mantelet. The Oxford English Dictionary does not regard the French word as having derived from Arabic جَلِيقَة (jalīqa), which it views as a recent borrowing from Italian into Algerian Arabic. Doublet of jelick.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.