A special piece of clothing worn by soldiers to protect them from shrapnel and grenade fragments, other non-direct fire and battlefield debris. Sometimes used informally to connote any of the various forms of a bullet-proof vest.
2022 May 20, Michael M. Grynbaum, “White House Press Secretary Gets a New ‘Flak Jacket’: A Women’s Blazer”, in The New York Times[1], →ISSN:
By longstanding, bipartisan tradition, decades of White House press secretaries have handed down a cheeky symbol of their job fielding rat-a-tat inquiries from feisty reporters: a flak jacket.
