tabard

plural tabards

1. A silk banner attached to a bugle or trumpet.
2. A sleeveless jerkin or loose overgarment.

   The long rows of wheat-shocks marched like soldiers in worn yellow tabards.

   1920, Sinclair Lewis, chapter III, in Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, →OCLC, page 25

   3 more examples

   ‘I still cannot believe I actually did that!’ Maureen told me, recalling that time her and the Nanas turned up at former prime minister David Cameron's house in Oxfordshire on a tank Vivienne Westwood lent them, wearing tabards that said ‘The Oven Gloves Are Coming Off’.

   2017, Jamie Bartlett, chapter 7, in Radicals, William Heinemann, →ISBN

   In Rugeley, England, inside a sky-blue warehouse the size of nine football pitches on the site of an old colliery, Amazon employs hundreds of people wearing orange tabards who push trolleys down deep aisles of shelving, stacking them with books, DVDs, electronics and other goods.

   2018, James Bridle, “Complexity”, in The New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future, Verso Books, →ISBN, page 114

   This is the point at which someone usually suggests riders wear a numbered, hi-vis tabard.

   2022 January 31, Peter Walker, “Has the Times declared war on cyclists?”, in The Guardian

3. historicalA sleeveless garment made of coarse cloth formerly worn outdoors by the common people.
4. historicalA cape or tunic worn by a knight, emblazoned with the coat of arms of his king or queen on the front.

   And thereupon, behold, a knight on a black horse appeared, clothed in jet-black velvet, and with a tabard of black linen about him.

   1858, Thomas Bulfinch, chapter II, in The Age of Chivalry

5. historicalA similar garment officially worn by a herald and emblazoned with his sovereign's coat of arms.

   The heralds in their tabards were marvellous to behold, and a nod from Rouge Croix gave me the keenest gratification.

   1863, William Makepeace Thackeray, Roundabout Papers

   2 more examples

   Along the narrow winding path between the great oak trees there rode a dark sallow man in a scarlet tabard who blew so loudly upon a silver trumpet that they heard the clanging call long before they set eyes on him.

   1905–1906, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter XIII, in Sir Nigel, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], published January 1906, →OCLC

   She wore a short surcoat of scarlet, cut low around the shoulders, sleeveless, reaching just below her hips, like the tabards worn by medieval heralds. Over it she wore a laced-edged cotta.

   1965, Attila Zohar, Kings Cross Black Magic, Sydney: Horwitz Publications, page 25