jacket n.
1. (US) the human skin; usu. in phrs. below.
2. a sheepskin.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Hants. Advertiser 14 June 5/1: Marlow said he had got some jackets (a slang word for sheep skins), and had sold them. |
3. (W.I.) refs. to illegitimacy [the jacket ‘dresses up’ a man and thus confers respectability on the child].
(a) a child fathered by a woman’s lover rather than by her husband.
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage. | |
 | Jah Lrics Dict. 🌐 Jacket - Bastard; a child that is raised by another father. (Usually from the wife cheating on someone else and the father never knowing). |
(b) any child who has no ‘official’ father.
| Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage. |
(c) a man who accepts the role of father to a child he knows is not his; thus wear a jacket for, for a man to accept a child as his own.
| Official Dancehall Dict. 27: Jacket a man who unknowingly accepts the social responsibility of fatherhood for a child not thought to be his genetic off-spring: u. a fi ’im jacket that. |
4. (US Und.) ext./fig. uses.
(a) an arrest followed by an order to leave a town or city.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | St Paul Globe (MN) 3 June 5/6: ‘What’s Jimmie Butler’s graft now?’ ‘Jimmie’s a stall for a dip. Him an’ his partner got a jacket last week [...] they were run out of town by the police’. | |
| Salt Lake Herald (UT) 19 Oct. 5/1: A ten-spot in the bandhouse from the beak when the worst should have been a jacket (an order to leave town). |
(b) the police/prison file on a criminal, recording previous convictions etc; one’s criminal record.
| Big Con 299: jacket. 1. An entry in the police records which may stand against a criminal if he is picked up on another charge, so called from the folder or ‘jacket’ in which the entry is filed. | |
| Neon Wilderness (1986) 21: We’ll get a jacket for you one of these days. | |
| et al. DAUL 109/1: Jacket. 1. (P) Any case-history folder in the central record office. | |
| On the Yard (2002) 241: The kid in your cell’s got a jacket [...] a freak jacket. | |
| No Beast So Fierce 25: I’ve seen both good and bad in your jacket. | |
| Death Row xvii: A jacket, to the officials, is an official record packet. | |
| Skin Tight 22: Jersey state police got a fat jacket on him. | |
| Florida Roadkill 204: Two criminal jackets and mug shots came up on her screen. | |
| You Got Nothing Coming 9: Jimmy, you have no criminal jacket, no arrest record. | |
| Last Kind Words 182: ‘I bet you’ve checked my police jacket,’ I said. | |
| Boy from County Hell 148: They wanted the kiddie-diddler’s death in their jacket. |
(c) a reputation, usu. bad; thus fruit jacket, a reputation as a homosexual.
| Und. Speaks n.p.: Hot potato jacket, a chiseling, selfish, worthless person . | |
| On the Yard (2002) 32: Make em [i.e. lies] about young skunks you scored on. Maybe you can ease from under the freak jacket you’ve been carrying. | |
| Animal Factory 110: If you get a jacket as a punk, you’ll have that wherever you go. | |
| Death Row xvii: To the inmates, jacket means a reputation. | |
| Spike Island (1981) 226: Everything you do parlays to the next day. All your life. And that’s the jacket you got to live with. | |
| Silent Terror 67: If a ‘fruit jockey’ made a sexual advance toward you, ‘wail on his head’ [...] because if you didn’t ‘put him straight,’ you would acquire a ‘fruit jacket.’. | |
| Mr Blue 148: I thought you were trying to put a fag jacket on me. | |
| Confessions of a Caddie 49: A caddie who gets a ‘bad jacket’ hung on them in the shack is in for trouble. |
(d) a witness to a crime.
| Big Con 300: jacket. A tip-off, or a witness to a crime who may testify later. |
(e) a jail sentence.
| Man with the Golden Arm 24: They’d gotten a one-to-life jacket on him for the second [murder]. |
(f) a military service record.
| (con. 1965-66) Rumor of War 336: ‘The general’s going to put a letter of reprimand in your jacket, but hell, all that’ll do is hurt your chances for promotion’. | |
| (con. 1964–73) Bloods (1985) 33: He’s a major. He’s reading my jacket, and he’s looking with his glasses at me. |
(g) (N.Z. prison) one who provides an albi and/or removes incriminating evidence., e.g. the weapon for a gang killer.
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 94/2: jacket n. a person who covers for another during or after a hit, e.g. he may provide an alibi, or take the weapon used in he hit and pass it on, or perform any action that deflects suspicion away from the guilty party. |
5. (US) a condom.
| 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases. | |
| Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words. | |
| Dirty South 35: Mum always said to me not to trust no girl and wear a ‘jacket’ at all times. |
In phrases
see under dust v.1
(US) to threaten someone with an arrest and prison sentence.
| Chicago: City On the Make 76: Be in court with it [police bribe] at nine tomorrow or we’ll pick you up without it ’n fit you for a jacket. |
see sense 3b above.
(W.I., Jam.) for a married woman to conceive and bear a child by her lover and pass it off to her husband as his.
| cited in Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage (1996). |
(US) to give someone a (non-judicial) whipping.
| Flash (NY) 24 Oct. n.p.: If I ever meet you alone, I will give you a striped jacket. |
(US prison) for one inmate to accuse another of informing.
| Riot (1967) 171: Don’t be hangin’ a bum jacket on the guy. Skinny’s a good head. | |
| Thief 361: That’s a rough fucking jacket you’re hanging on Murf. | |
| Maledicta V:1+2 (Summer + Winter) 264: An inmate hangs a jacket on another convict by accusing him publicly of being an informer. | |
| Blue Mexican 247: You gonna let me sit and then hang a jacket on me. I know how you guys operate. |
to thrash, to beat up.
| Tom Jones (1959) 507: I’ll teach thee to father-in-law me. I’ll lick thy jacket. | |
| Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 20: You must promise me that you / Won’t lick the rascal’s jacket now. | |
| cartoon caption (illustrating a horsewhipping) I’ll pepper his jacket. |
to fill one’s stomach; either with food or drink.
| Dict. of Fr. and Eng. Tongues n.p.: Il s’acoustre bien. He stuffes himself soundly, he lines his jacket thoroughly with liquor. | |
| Gloss. (1888) I 445: jacket. To line one’s jacket, to drink deeply. |
(N.Z. prison) to ostraciuse to an intense degree.
| Big Huey 198: Kapua, in the meantime, was put on the heavy jacket by the Maoris in the can and was sitting at a table all by himself. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 94/2: on the heavy jacket shunned or ostracised to an extreme degree. |
(US prison) a reputation for cowardice.
| (con. 1998–2000) You Got Nothing Coming 74: You get a punk jacket in here and you are just meat. |
(N.Z.) to ostracize.
| Big Huey 198: Kapua [...] had been put on the heavy jacket by the Maoris in the can, and was sitting at a table all by himself. |
(US prison) a reputation as an informer.
| Choirboys (1976) 275: We always used a code name and he didn’t get a rat jacket behind it. | |
| Suicide Hill 139: ‘He's between [...] Bagdessarian and me on one side, the robbers and getting a rat jacket on the other’. | |
| Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Jacket: Central File. Label. To be marked as a snitch or informant. ‘He has a rat jacket.’. | |
| Busted! 96: It’s truly amazing how easy it is for some asshole coward who’s afraid to confront an inmate they don’t like to just put a ‘Rat Jacket’ on a guy and then sit back. |
(US Und.) a reputation as an informer.
| Issues in Criminology I 216: If a person carries a ‘snitch jacket’ in the joint, he is usually given the choice of being ‘punked’ (turned into a homosexual) or being killed. | |
| ‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2 43: Snitch jacket, n. An informer. | |
| Tucson Dly Citizen (AZ) 22 Sept. 4/1: Any inmate can put a snitch jacket on another, and [...] a prisoner will get extra canteens from a snitch by not carrying out a threat to put a snitch jacket on him. | |
| Death Row 115: That’s the worst thing you can come down to the penitentiary with – a snitch-jacket. | |
| Homeboy 21: With his snitch jacket, he wouldn’t last a week [i.e. in jail]. | |
| Snitch Jacket 43: He measured me for the snitch jacket and slipped me snugly inside. |
to beat, to thrash.
| [ | | in Poems on Divers Subjects (1706) 275: [poem title] A Protestant Scourge for a Popish Jacket]. |
| Saints in Uproar in Works (1760) I 74: Dark nights will come, and then I’ll substantially thrash your jacket for you. | |
| Rambling Fuddle-Caps 7: Let my Follies alone, Or I’ll Pudding your Jacket as bad as my own. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Midas II i: Quick, bundle up your packet, / For fear this beggar meet you / And thrash your jacket. | |
| Brother Jonathan II 49: I’ll thrash your jacket for you. |
(US) in one’s stomach.
| Kentuckian in N.Y. I 188: I’m flambergasted! if that ain’t what I call goin the whole cretur, he’d go to Congress from old Kentuck as easy as I could put a gin sling under my jacket. |
(UK Und.) infuriating.
| Swell’s Night Guide 76: This last remark was too much for the chummy’s donna; it was all up her jacket; it was a gooser with her nibbs. |
(US) to get drunk.
| N.-Y. Enquirer 11 Jan. 2/2: I am blessed with a tippling husband . . . [who locks me up] whenever he intends wetting his jacket. |