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Glite Dictionary
🎬 American actress 🦺 Life jacket
Mae West

Mae West

8.4
An inflatable life jacket used by pilots and crew that is shaped like a woman's chest
  • noun
  • /meɪ wɛst/
  • Archaic
translation icon : chaleco Mae West
  • The pilot put on his Mae West life jacket before leaving the aircraft.

Examples

  • Our only hope was the Mae West radio that we'd carried with us.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • During World War II, aircrew members wore a Mae West to ensure their safety while flying.

  • And you're also gonna check for Mae West.

    Fandango (1985)

  • After the emergency landing, each crew member was instructed to grab a Mae West before exiting the plane.

Synonyms

air jacket
vsMae West
4.1

An inflatable vest that keeps you afloat in water

is the wartime aircrew version used in World War II and named for resemblance

Surface Forms

Mae West singular
Mae Wests plural

Morphology

Mae + West

This is an eponymic name: the phrase refers to a life jacket named after actress Mae West because of a perceived resemblance to her figure, so the meaning is not compositionally derived from the words 'Mae' and 'West'. A B1 learner who knows the constituent words would not be able to infer the life-jacket meaning without cultural or historical knowledge, making it idiomatic and unpredictable.

Etymology

Mae West is a nickname for an inflatable 'life jacket' used by pilots in World War II because, when the jacket was full of air, its rounded shape reminded people of the actress's figure, so the jacket came to be called Mae West.