Where I'm from it usually meant that they had that thang on them

What does it really mean?
Definitely means one wrong move and they will air this bytch out.![]()


tummy ache
The hand-in-waistcoat (also referred to as hand-inside-vest, hand-in-jacket, hand-held-in, or hidden hand) is a gesture commonly found in portraiture during the 18th and 19th centuries. The pose appeared by the 1750s to indicate leadership in a calm and firm manner. The pose is most often associated with Napoleon I of France due to its use in several portraits made by his artist, Jacques-Louis David, amongst them the 1812 painting Napoleon in His Study.[1] The pose, thought of as being stately, was copied by other portrait painters across Europe and America. Most paintings and photographs show the right hand inserted into the waistcoat/jacket but some sitters appear with the left hand inserted. The pose was also often seen in mid-nineteenth century photography.[2
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Background
The pose traces back to classical times — Aeschines, founder of a rhetoric school, suggested that speaking with an arm outside one's toga was bad manners.[3] Arline Meyer, in her essay "Re-Dressing Classical Statuary: The Eighteenth-Century 'Hand-in-Waistcoat' Portrait," notes the pose being used in eighteenth century British portraiture as a sign of the sitter's breeding. Francois Nivelon's A Book Of Genteel Behavior of 1738 noted the hand-inside-vest pose denoted "manly boldness tempered with modesty."[3]
Appearance in photography
With the invention of photography, the pose continued but may have had an additional purpose in preventing blurring by maintaining the sitter's hand in a single place. The pose is commonly seen in photographs of members of the military, with a number of American Civil War photographs showing the pose, or indicated by three open buttons on a tunic.[4]