Personal protective equipment (PPE) refers to protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garment or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury by blunt impacts, electrical hazards, heat, chemicals, and infection, for job-related occupational safety and health purposes, and in sports, martial arts, combat, etc. Personal armor is combat-specialized protective gear. In British legislation the term PPE does not cover items such as armour. The terms "protective gear" and "protective clothing" are in many cases interchangeable; "protective clothing" is applied to traditional categories of clothing, and "gear" is a more general term and preferably means uniquely protective categories, such as pads, guards, shields, masks, etc.

Items such as fire extinguishers, first aid kits are not protective gear, but rather equipment to support the personal protection of the subject. Handcuffs, tasers, batons and handguns used by police forces fall under this category.

The use of personal protective equipment is to reduce employee exposure to hazards when engineering and administrative controls are not feasible or effective to reduce these risks to acceptable levels.