jack

English Online Dictionary. What means jack‎? What does jack mean?

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: jăk, IPA^(key): /d͡ʒæk/
• Rhymes: -æk

Etymology 1

Inherited from Middle English jakke, from Anglo-Norman jacke, Middle French jaque, jacque, from jacques (“peasant”), from the proper name Jacques. Compare jacquerie.

Noun

jack (plural jacks)

1. A coarse mediaeval coat of defence, especially one made of leather. [from 14th c.]

   jack of plate (armor made up of small metal plates sewn between layers of cloth, similar to a brigandine)

   jack of mail

   padded jack

   • 1591, John Harington, translating Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, x. 73 (quoted in e.g. 1822, Robert Nares, A Glossary, page 186):

     Their horsemen are with jacks for most part clad, / Their horses are both swift of course and strong, / They run on horseback with a slender gad, / And like a speare, but that it is more long.

Derived terms

Etymology 2

Transferative use of the personal name Jack.

(cricket: eleventh batsman): An allusion to the jack in playing cards, which follows the 10.

Noun

jack (plural jacks)

1. A man.
   1. (chiefly capitalized) A name applied to a hypothetical or typical man. [from 14th c.]
   2. (countable, now chiefly US) A man, a fellow; a typical man; men in general. [from 16th c.]
   3. (colloquial) A sailor. [from 17th c.]
   4. (slang) A policeman or detective; (Australia) a military policeman. [from 19th c.]

      Synonyms: jake; see also Thesaurus:police officer
   5. (now rare) A manual laborer. [from 19th c.]
   6. (Canada, US, colloquial) A lumberjack. [from 20th c.]
   7. (India, historical, slang) A sepoy.
2. A device or utensil.
   1. A device for turning a spit; a smokejack or roasting jack. [from 14th c.]
   2. Each of a series of blocks in a harpsichord or the earlier virginal, communicating the action of the key to the quill; sometime also, a hopper in a modern piano. [from 16th c.]
   3. (obsolete) A support for wood being sawn; a sawhorse or sawbuck. [16th–19th c.]
   4. A device used to hold a boot by the heel, to assist in removing the boot. [from 17th c.]
   5. A mechanical device used to raise and (temporarily) support a heavy object, now especially to lift one side of a motor vehicle when (e.g.) changing a tyre. [from 17th c.]

      She used a jack to lift her car and changed the tire.

   6. Any of various levers for raising or lowering the sinkers which push the loops down on the needles in a knitting machine or stocking frame. [from 18th c.]
   7. (mining, now rare) A wedge for separating rocks rent by blasting. [from 19th c.]
   8. (obsolete) A grating device used to separate and guide the threads in a warping machine; a heck box. [19th c.]
   9. (obsolete) A machine for twisting the sliver as it leaves a carding machine, in the preparation of yarn. [19th–20th c.]
   10. (electronics) A switch for a jack plug, a jackknife switch; (more generally) a socket used to connect a device to a circuit, network etc. [from 19th c.]

       telephone jack

       Antonym: plug

3. A non-tool object or thing.
   1. (now historical, regional) A pitcher or other vessel for holding liquid, especially alcoholic drink; a black-jack. [from 16th c.]
      • 1820-25, Charles Lamb, in Essays of Elia (1830)

        He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon our quarter-of-a-penny loaf — our crug — moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden piggings, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from.

   3. (card games, originally colloquial) The lowest court card in a deck of standard playing cards, ranking between the 10 and queen, with an image of a knave or pageboy on it. [from 17th c.]

      Synonym: knave

   4. (bowls) A small, typically white, ball used as the target ball in bowls; a jack-ball. [from 17th c.]
   6. (nautical) A small ship's flag used as a signal or identifying device; a small flag flown at the bow of the vessel. [from 17th c.]
   7. (UK, regional, now rare, historical) A measure of liquid corresponding to a quarter of a pint. [from 18th c.]
   8. (obsolete, slang) A fake coin designed to look like a sovereign. [19th c.]
   9. (nautical, now rare, historical) A jack crosstree. [from 19th c.]
   10. (games) A small, six-pointed playing piece used in the game of jacks. [from 19th c.]
   11. (US) A torch or other light used in hunting to attract or dazzle game at night. [from 19th c.]
   12. (slang, chiefly US) Money, cash. [from 19th c.]
   13. (Canada, US) A strong alcoholic liquor, especially home-distilled or illicit. [from 19th c.]
       • 1920, Hart Crane, letter, 14 April:

         [A] quart of raisin jack was divided between us with the result that tha day proper (after the night before) was spent very quietly, watered and Bromo-Seltzered, with amusing anecdotes occasionally sprouting from towelled head to towelled head.

   15. (colloquial, euphemistic) Nothing, not anything, jack shit. [from 20th c.]
   16. (cricket, slang) The eleventh batsman to come to the crease in an innings.
   17. (slang, Appalachians) A smooth often ovoid large gravel or small cobble in a natural water course.
4. A plant or animal.
   1. A pike, especially when young. [from 16th c.]
   2. (chiefly US) A male ass, especially when kept for breeding. [from 17th c.]

      Synonym: jackass

   3. Any of the marine fish in the family Carangidae. [from 17th c.]

      Synonym: jack mackerel

   4. (US) A jackrabbit. [from 19th c.]
   5. A large California rockfish, the bocaccio, Sebastes paucispinis.
   6. Mangifera caesia, related to the mango tree.
   7. (colloquial) Plant in the genus Arisaema, also known as Jack-in-the-pulpit, and capitalized Jack.
   8. (colloquial) Spadix of a plant (also capitalized Jack).
   9. (apparently does not occur standalone for the genus per se) Plant of the genus Emex, also considered synonymous to Rumex, if not then containing two species lesser jack and little jack for Emex spinosa syn. Rumex spinosus, Australian English three-corner jack and prickly jack for Emex australis syn. Rumex hypogaeus.

Derived terms

Descendants

• → Brazilian Portuguese: jegue
• → European Portuguese: jaque

Translations

See also

Verb

jack (third-person singular simple present jacks, present participle jacking, simple past and past participle jacked)

1. (transitive) To physically raise using a jack.

   Synonym: jack up
2. (transitive) To raise or increase.

3. To increase the potency of an alcoholic beverage similarly to distillation by chilling it to below the freezing point of water, removing the water ice crystals that form, and leaving the still-liquid alcoholic portion.
4. (transitive, colloquial) To steal (something), typically an automobile; to rob (someone).
5. (intransitive) To dance by moving the torso forward and backward in a rippling motion.
6. (colloquial, vulgar) To jack off, to masturbate.
7. (Memphis African-American slang) To fight.
8. (intransitive or transitive, informal) To jerk or move by jerking; to remove or move (something).

Derived terms

• jack into
• jack up (several meanings)
• jack off
• applejack

Translations

Adjective

jack (comparative more jack, superlative most jack)

1. (Australia) Tired, disillusioned; fed up (with). [from 19th c.]

Etymology 3

From Portuguese jaca (“jackfruit”), from Malayalam ചക്ക (cakka).

Alternative forms

• jak

Noun

jack (plural jacks)

1. The edible fruit of the Asian tree (Artocarpus heterophyllus); also the tree itself. [from 16th c.]
2. The related tree Mangifera caesia.

   Synonyms: white mango, wani

Etymology 4

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Noun

jack (plural jacks)

1. (slang, baseball) A home run.

Verb

jack (third-person singular simple present jacks, present participle jacking, simple past and past participle jacked)

1. (transitive, slang, baseball) To hit (the ball) hard; especially, to hit (the ball) out of the field, producing a home run.
   • a. 2009, Jim McManus, quoted in T.J. Lewis, A View from the Mound: My Father’s Life in Baseball, Lulu.com (publisher, 2008), →ISBN, page 107:

     Maybe he hung a curve ball to somebody and they jacked it out of the park on him and he wasn’t upset about it.

Derived terms

Translations

References

• “jack”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “jack”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English jack.

Pronunciation

Noun

jack n (plural jacks, diminutive jackje n)

1. jacket

Portuguese

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English jack. Doublet of jaque.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛki

Noun

jack m (plural jacks)

1. jack (an electronic connector mounted on a surface)
2. (Brazil, slang) rapist, strictly a male one

   Synonym: estuprador

Romanian

Noun

jack n (plural jackuri)

1. Alternative form of geac