arch. or Hist. Also 6 ierkynge, -yn, 6–7 -en, 7 jerking. [Recorded soon after 1500: origin unknown.
(It has been conjecturally associated with Du. and Western LG. jurk, ‘girl’s or child’s frock’; but, besides the facts that Eng. j does not correspond to Du. j (= y), and that a jerkin is not a frock, jurk is merely a mod. Du. word, unknown to Kilian, Hexham, and other 17th-c. lexicographers, and is itself of unknown origin.)]
A garment for the upper part of the body, worn by men in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; a close-fitting jacket, jersey, or short coat, often made of leather. Since c. 1700 used in literature only historically, or in reference to foreign countries; but app. still used in some dialects for a waistcoat, an under vest, or a loose jacket.
1519. Presentm. Juries, in Surtees Misc. (1888), 33. For stellyng a jerkynge.
1532–3. Act 24 Hen. VIII., c. 13. No man, vnder the saide degrees … weare … any silke, other than … veluet in their sleueles cotes, iakettes, ierkyns, coifes, cappes.
1556. W. Towrson, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 101. [They] haue their skinne of their bodies raced with diuers workes in maner of a leather Ierkin.
1576. Gascoigne, Steele Gl., Epil. (Arb.), 83. What are they? women? masking in mens weedes? With dutchkin dublits, and with Ierkins iaggde.
1599. Thynne, Animadv. (1875), 31. A common garmente daylye vsed suche as we call a Ierken or Iackett without sleues.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., III. iii. 266. A plague of opinion, one may weare it on both sides, like a leather Ierkin.
1616. Sir R. Boyle, in Lismore Papers (1886), I. 135. Iohn nagle sent me ffrize for a Ierkin and breeches for my own wearing.
1726. Swift, Gulliver, I. i. By good luck, I had on me a buff jerkin, which they could not pierce.
1808. Scott, Marm., I. viii. Last, twenty yeomen two and two, In hosen black, and jerkins blue.
1820. W. Irving, Sketch Bk. (1859), 25. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion—a cloth jerkin, strapped round the waist—several pair of breeches, the outer one … decorated with rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches at the knees.
1828. Craven Dial., Jerkin, a waistcoat.
1843. Borrow, Bible in Spain, xxv. 147. A shabby-looking fellow, dressed in a jerkin and wearing a high-crowned hat, attended as domestic.
1868. Freeman, Norm. Conq., II. ix. 389. With nothing but his javelin and his leathern jerkin.
b. Comb., as jerkin-maker.
c. 1565. J. Sparke, in Hakluyt, Voy., III. 504. They … doe iagge their flesh … as workemanlike as a Ierkinmaker with vs pinketh a ierkin.
1589. Nottingham Rec., IV. 58. Thomas Rogers, de Nottingham, iyrkynmaker.
Hence Jerkined a. [-ED2], wearing a jerkin.
1852. Miss Yonge, Cameos (1877), III. xii. 98. Five hundred red jerkined men.
