What it means
ژاکت (zhâket) refers to a cardigan or a soft knitted jacket, the kind of casual layering piece worn over a shirt or blouse for warmth rather than formality. The word comes from French jaquette, a diminutive of jaque, meaning a short jacket. Persian borrowed this term along with the garment itself during the period of French cultural influence in Iran in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The initial sound ژ (zh), like the s in the English word measure, marks it clearly as a foreign import since this sound does not appear in native Persian words. It is distinct from کت (kot), which refers to a structured blazer or suit jacket.
How to use it
- ژاکتم رو بافتم. (Zhâketamo bâftam.) “I knitted my cardigan.”
- یه ژاکت نازک بپوش. (Ye zhâket nâzok bepush.) “Put on a light cardigan.”
- ژاکت آبی کجاست؟ (Zhâket-e âbi kojâste?) “Where is the blue cardigan?”
- هوا سرده، ژاکت لازمه. (Havâ sarde, zhâket lâzeme.) “It’s cold, you need a cardigan.”
Cultural note
Hand-knitted ژاکت garments have a long tradition in the cooler regions of Iran, particularly in the north and northwest where winters are harsh. Grandmothers knitting cardigans for family members remains a familiar domestic image in Iranian culture. In contemporary urban fashion, machine-made ژاکت styles follow international trends, and the word is often used interchangeably with its approximate synonym بافتنی (bâftani), meaning something knitted, though ژاکت more specifically implies a front-opening cardigan shape.