gilet jaune

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French gilet jaune.

Noun

gilet jaune (plural gilets jaunes)

1. (usually in the plural) A yellow vest, a member of a French protest movement which started in 2018.
   • 2023 November 17, Oliver Haynes, “Five years on, the world is failing to learn the gilets jaunes’ lesson about class and climate”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     French protests are always lively, but as the journalist John Lichfield observed, “the white-hot anger” of the gilets jaunes was “something new and different”.

French

gilet jaune (sense 3): protester photographed by Thomas Bresson in 2018

Alternative forms

• Gilet jaune (member of protest movement)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʒi.lɛ ʒon/

Noun

gilet jaune m (plural gilets jaunes)

1. yellow high-visibility safety vest

   Synonyms: gilet de haute visibilité, gilet de sécurité

   Hyponym: EPI

2. (by extension, informal, metonymically) motorway patroller, who wears such a vest

   Synonym: homme en jaune

4. (by extension, France, metonymically) a member of a French protest movement which started in late 2018 against rising fuel prices; members of the movement wore such vests
   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:gilet jaune.
5. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see gilet,‎ jaune.

Coordinate terms

• jacquerie

Derived terms

• giletjaunisation
• giletjauniser

Descendants

• → English: gilet jaune, → yellow vest (calque), → yellow jacket (calque)

See also

• bonnet rouge (literally “red cap”)