Officials were called jinshen because they tucked their tablets into red silk sashes.
Tips
history
缙 is not an independent word today. It survives almost only in 缙绅 ('the gentry / officialdom') and the place name 缙云. The silk radical 纟 gives the cloth sense; 晋 supplies the sound.
register
Literary and archaic. Outside the fixed word 缙绅 and proper names, you will not meet 缙 in modern speech or writing.
