Vest is such an interesting word.

from the root of "to wear" it can be real clothing, (a vest)or a figurative 'clothing' (with the power vested in me..) or you can be vested (in a pension plan) which just means your are invested (but you also get invested with power!)

you divest, or invest, be vested, or wear a vest..

(but if you are invested with spiritual power, (ie, a preist or minister) you don't get devested, you get defrocked! (so you get vested, but your vest is a frock.)

and i am sure vest has other nuances.. (like vestment, and investment)

and waistcost, no? (weskit?)

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=vest

Oh yes, weskit/waistcoat is a fun word.

there are some (in a small green part of the world) that mangle and misprononce words so effectively, that poor american visitors to their land thought there was a new name for a waistcoat. and so WESKIT came into being..

WESKIT is how Waistcoat was commonly said.
its a sonic error.

(sonic errors abound--like:
Baited breath
taken for granite
hare's breath...

we could do a whole thread on sonic errors!)

Synjon is another (you know, its how you say the name, (not a very popular one i'll admit, but found in literature) St.John. (Jane Eyre has an important character named St.John.)

Dr bill had this to say about weskits:
had an amusing experience the first time
I took ferry from Cape Tormentine to Borden on PEI.
There was a safety poster in French, about 'gilets de
sauvettage'. With my best high-school French, I asked
the purser who looked French:'Qu'est que c'est un gilet
de sauvettage?' He snarled at me:'I don't speak French!'
And shut his door before I could ask again in English.
As I walked away, I suddenly had vision of an illustration
in a French language version of Alice in Wonderland, with
the White Rabbit wearing a bright red weskit.
Suddenly it dawned on me: Weskit in French is 'gilet'.
So 'gilets de sauvettage' were life jackets.


so anyone--is the word gilet related to the PIE(that's proto indo european, not PEI(Prince Edward Island--reputed to be the prettiest place on earth) word for clothing (to wear clothing?)

here's what the Oxford had to say about gilet:

gilet
/jilay/

• noun (pl. gilets pronunc. same) a light sleeveless padded jacket.

— ORIGIN French, ‘waistcoat’, from Turkish.

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/gilet?view=uk