spencer

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Nautical A trysail.
2. n. A short double-breasted overcoat worn by men in the early 19th century.
3. n. A close-fitting, waist-length jacket worn by women.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A man's outer garment or overcoat so short that the skirts of the body-coat worn under it were seen: a fashion introduced about 1800.
2. n. A woman's garment introduced a year or two later, and made in direct imitation of the above. It also was short, and formed a kind of over-jacket, reaching a little below the waist.
3. n. Nautical, a trapezoidal fore-and-aft sail set abaft the foremast and mainmast; a trysail.

Wiktionary

1. n. A short, close-fitting jacket primarily worn by women and children in the early nineteenth century; probably named after George Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer (1758-1834).
2. n. A thin knitted woollen vest.
3. n. A large loose-fitted gaffsail on a square-rigger or barque, used from the nineteenth century onwards.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete One who has the care of the spence, or buttery.
2. n. A short jacket worn by men and by women.
3. n. (Naut.) A fore-and-aft sail, abaft the foremast or the mainmast, hoisted upon a small supplementary mast and set with a gaff and no boom; a trysail carried at the foremast or mainmast; -- named after its inventor, Knight Spencer, of England [1802].

WordNet 3.0

1. n. English philosopher and sociologist who applied the theory of natural selection to human societies (1820-1903)