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In 2005, Paul Davidson, a filmmaker, made a blog post in which he claimed that the term "wifebeater" had evolved from a medieval chain mail undergarment called a "waif-beater", and this was picked up as fact by other outlets. In the same blog post, he claimed that the term became synonymous with an undershirt after a Detroit man was reportedly arrested in 1947 for beating his wife to death. The story claims that newspapers printed a photo of the "wife beater" wearing a stained undershirt. This claim was repeated by numerous outlets. However, no evidence has been found in news archives to substantiate this rumor. Davidson openly admitted in 2018 that the blog post was a hoax, created to trick people who unquestioningly believed anything they read on the Internet.

A sleeveless shirt, also known as a tank top, "wife beater", among other names, is a shirt that is manufactured without sleeves or with sleeves that have been cut off.