Etymology

bad-jacket

Today it means: To create suspicion around (a person) through the spreading of rumors, manufacture of evidence and disinformation, etc. Full definition →

English jacket ← Middle French jacquet ← Middle English badde
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The story

  1. Middle Englishbadde
  2. Englishbad
  3. Middle Frenchjacquet
  4. Englishjacket
  5. English todaybad-jacket

From bad + jacket; see jacket (“(slang) a police record”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.