Other forms: vested, vests, vesting
A vest is a sleeveless top. A running vest, a high-visibility vest, a bulletproof vest.
The word means different garments on either side of the Atlantic. In British English a vest is an undershirt worn next to the skin, and the sleeveless garment worn over a shirt with a suit is a waistcoat. In American English, vest is the waistcoat. Both use vest for the protective and sporting kinds: a life vest, a hi-vis vest. Note the separate legal verb vest, meaning to give somebody a right — powers vested in the office.
1nounvestA sleeveless top, worn under or over other clothes.
“The high-visibility vest is required on every site.”
synonyms: waistcoat, undershirt
2verbgiveTo give somebody a right or power.
“The power is vested in the office rather than the person.”
vest is a garment.
Also accepted in games: waistcoat
Latin vestis means a garment, from a root meaning to clothe — the same source as vestment, invest and travesty, which means dressing across. To invest somebody was originally to clothe them in the robes of office, and money was invested by the same metaphor.
Proto-Indo-European
*wes-
Proto-Indo-European
*wéstis
Latin
vestis — a garment, gown, robe, vestment, clothing, vesture
French
veste — a vest, jacket
English, today
vest
Built from
French veste (“a vest, jacket”), from Latin vestis (“a garment, gown, robe, vestment, clothing, vesture”), from Proto-Indo-European wéstis, from wes- (“to be dressed”) (English wear). Cognate with Sanskrit वस्त्र and Spanish vestir.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA