body jacket

body jacket (plural body jackets)

1. A form-fitting garment covering the upper body, with or without sleeves.
   • 1824 May, “The Drama. Covent Garden and Drury Lane”, in The London Magazine, volume 9, page 367:

     Young Grimaldi, in a white body jacket, plays off several antics at the end of the first act […]

   • 1896, James O. Lyford, “The Governor’s Horse Guards” in History of Concord New Hampshire, City History Commission, Volume I, Appendix, p. iii,

     The uniform of the field was a white dolman, green body jacket and trousers, shako and pompon, gray astrachan fur and gold lace trimmings […]

   • 1896, Joseph Conrad, chapter IV, in An Outcast of the Islands, London: T. Fisher Unwin […], →OCLC, part V, page 374:

     The dazzling white stuff of her body jacket was crossed by a bar of yellow and silver of her scarf, […]

   • 1948, Marguerite Henry, King of the Wind, New York: Rand McNally, 1970, Chapter 22, p. 163,

     Two grooms stood ready with silken lead ropes. They were dressed in the Earl’s stable colors—scarlet silk body jackets and long scarlet stockings.

   • 1989, Matthew Hunter, Comrades, New York: Popular Library, Chapter 32, p. 263,

     The soldier was sweating in his body jacket, and carrying an assault rifle […]

2. (medicine) A rigid brace that fits around the torso (but does not cover the neck, arms or legs) to immobilize the spine, reduce curvature, etc.
   • 1934, John T. Saunders, “Lateral Curvature of the Spine Should Be Treated,” Southern Medicine & Surgery, Charlotte, North Carolina, Volume 96, No. 10, October, 1934, p. 543,

     For three months after the operation the patient remains recumbent in the original bent jacket. Then he is allowed to walk in a body jacket applied so as to produce a slight list of the trunk toward the convexity of the primary curve.

   • 2000, Harry B. Skinner (ed.), Diagnosis and Treatment in Orthopedics, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2nd edition, Chapter 11, p. 562,

     When the goal is to provide postural support, slow progression, or postpone (but not prevent) surgery, a polypropylene body jacket, or “clam-shell brace,” may suffice for waking or sitting hours.