jacketed

1. 1
   adjective

   Enclosed within an outer casing or shell, especially for protection or insulation.

   The jacketed reactor vessel circulates coolant through its outer shell.

   Jacketed cables resist abrasion far better than bare wiring.

   Similarencased, insulated, shielded, clad

   Oppositebare, exposed

   Note

   Here the jacket is a casing, not a garment, and the word often leads with what the casing is made of. The United States War Department's Annual Reports of 1861 mention steel-jacketed balls, and a shipping manual of 1920 specifies a can jacketed in iron, steel or wood. A book's cover counts too, as in George Orwell's "yellow-jacketed trash". Hyphenate the compound before a noun: a steel-jacketed bullet.

2. 2
   adjective

   Dressed in a jacket, especially as the visible outer layer of an outfit.

   The jacketed guests mingled in the cold lobby before the ceremony.

   Smartly jacketed, the doorman greeted each arrival by name.

   Similarsuited

   Oppositecoatless, shirtsleeved

   Note

   Once a word that hinted at rank. Kane O'Hara in 1780 imagines a peer arriving "like a porter jacketed", with the jacket as working dress rather than finery. By Anthony Burgess's Earthly Powers (1980), "tied and jacketed" suggests a man neatly turned out. It readily takes a fabric or a manner in front of it, as in Bret Harte's velvet-jacketed figures or a smartly jacketed doorman.

3. 3
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of jacket.

   Engineers jacketed the reactor to keep its temperature stable.

   The old boiler had been jacketed with thick insulation.

   Note

   The verb behind both adjectives is regular: it adds -ed with no doubled consonant. It takes have for the perfect (they have jacketed the pipes) and be for the passive (the tank was jacketed). Used of people, the verb can also mean confining someone in a straitjacket, so "the patient was jacketed" has nothing to do with wearing a jacket.

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