air jacket

air jacket

English

Noun

air jacket (plural air jackets)

1. A jacket with airtight cells, or cavities which can be filled with air, to make the wearer buoyant when swimming.
   • 1765, George Alexander Stevens, The Celebrated Lecture on Heads, London: R. Richards, Part 3, p. 16,

     […] our army all should wear a new uniform; all our horse infantry should wear air jackets, and all our foot cavalry should wear cork waistcoats; and then ye know why they’d be all over the sea before you could say Jack Robinson.

   • 1867, William Henry Smyth, The Sailor’s Word-Book, London: Blackie & Son, p. 28,

     AIR-JACKET. A leathern garment furnished with inflated bladders, to buoy the wearer up in the water.

   • 1985, Lawrence Durrell, Quinx, New York: Viking, Chapter 1, p. 29,

     She wore an inflatable air jacket stolen from Air France.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for air jacket in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)