Meanings
plural tank tops · alternative tanktop · alternative tank-top
- An item of casual clothing: a top with no sleeves.
The service makes available, during limited weekend hours, a handful of the company's items – cargo shorts, tank tops, and the like – to the Hamptons house guest who discovers that he can't make it to Monday without purchasing one of those weird madras patchwork blazers.
2004 August 30, The New Yorker, page 38Synonyms: tank
Synonyms & antonyms
nounAn item of casual clothing: a top with no sleeves.
Origin
The upper part of a tank suit worn by female swimmers in modester times when swimming pools were called swimming tanks.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
French débardeur
- débardeurvest
Polish dno wewnętrzne statku, podkoszulek
- dno wewnętrzne statkutop of a ship's bilge tank
- podkoszulekvest
- bezrękawnikvest
Cite this entry
tank top. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tank%20top
“tank top.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tank%20top. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tank top,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tank%20top.
Source: tank top on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.