Word Wednesday: "Gilet"

A modern take on a gilet.

Today's word is gilet, or "vest," from the French gilet, from Spanish gileco or chaleco, from Turkish yelek.  Though today it refers to a waistcoat or vest, it used to refer to any sleeveless jacket or vest that could be waist or knee length.  In women's fashion in the 1800, a gilet was a fitted dress bodice resembling a man's waistcoat.

There is also a municipality in Spain called Gilet, and a Medieval French-Hungarian noble family named Gilet.  We're guessing they are both named after the vest: the town perhaps because it was a center of Spanish gilet-making, and the family perhaps because they had tailors in their ancestry.

Ciao!
The Lonely Alchemist