See jackleg on Wiktionary
Download JSON data for jackleg meaning in All languages combined (7.9kB)
{
"etymology_text": "Compare blackleg (a person who replaces striking workers; a cheater) and such expressions as jack of all trades, every man jack.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "jackleg (not comparable)",
"name": "en-adj"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adj",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "American English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "1841, Letter to the editor, The Southern Planter, Volume I, No. 1, January 1841, p. 12,\nThe next year I had a projecting kind of jack leg carpenter, from Hanover, living with me in the capacity of overseer […]"
},
{
"text": "1941, Martha Colquitt, Interview published in Slave Narratives, Library of Congress Project, Volume 4: Georgia Narratives, Part 1,\nGrandma didn’t think chillun ought to see funerals, so de first one I ever seed, wuz when ma died two years atter de War wuz done over. A jackleg colored preacher talked, but he didn’t have sense ’nuff to preach a sho’ ’nuff sermon."
},
{
"text": "1957, Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, Wolfbane, Chapter 11, in Galaxy Science Fiction,\nHe was a doer, not a thinker; his skills were the skills of an artisan, a tinkerer, a jackleg mechanic."
},
{
"ref": "2010, Jabari Asim, “Day Work”, in A Taste of Honey, New York: Broadway Books, page 189",
"text": "At the gas station on the corner, a jackleg work crew was attaching plywood to the windows.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Amateur, untrained; incompetent."
],
"id": "en-jackleg-en-adj-tAJzoFw-",
"links": [
[
"Amateur",
"amateur"
],
[
"untrained",
"untrained"
],
[
"incompetent",
"incompetent"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US) Amateur, untrained; incompetent."
],
"tags": [
"US",
"not-comparable"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "American English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1911, Peter B. Kyne, chapter 14, in Captain Scraggs or The Green-Pea Pirates, New York: Grosset & Dunlap",
"text": "The little nosy reporter with the hair was fair crazy to come, but McGinty gets a jackleg doctor to examine him an’ swear that he’s sufferin’ from spatulation o’ the medulla oblongata, housemaid’s knee, and the hives.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1921, Sumner Charles Britton, chapter 4, in Dreamy Hollow, New York: World Syndicate Company, pages 49–50",
"text": "Villard’s great fortune should not be allowed to “dangle” in plain sight of “jack-leg lawyers,” while he, Parkins, awaited final results of the proceedings.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1988, Joyce Carol Thomas, chapter 1, in Journey, New York: Scholastic, page 27",
"text": "When I went to the so-called authorities for help I ran into jackleg politicians, wheeler-dealers, henchmen, finaglers and wire-pullers.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Dishonest, unscrupulous."
],
"id": "en-jackleg-en-adj-Y75IRPiv",
"links": [
[
"Dishonest",
"dishonest"
],
[
"unscrupulous",
"unscrupulous"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US) Dishonest, unscrupulous."
],
"tags": [
"US",
"not-comparable"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "American English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1889, John McGovern, chapter 12, in David Lockwin: The People’s Idol, Chicago: Donohue",
"text": "The train is late […]. ¶ “Well, if I come to such a place as this I must expect a jackleg railroad […].”",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1989, Jack Vance, chapter 7, in Madouc, Novato, California: Underwood-Miller, page 168",
"text": "With the first good rain the entire jackleg contraption might collapse around my ears […]",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"text": "2005, William Hoffman, Lies, Montgomery, Alabama: River City Publishing, Chapter 23, p. 226,\nDriving the secondhand Chevy pickup, he visits not only major car dealerships but also every jackleg garage he happens upon in dusty sun-blasted towns of the Deep South."
},
{
"ref": "2012, Stephen King, The Wind Through the Keyhole, New York: Simon & Schuster, page 176",
"text": "[…] he went first to the barn […] and made a jackleg bed with hay and an old mule blanket.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Ineptly built or operated; makeshift."
],
"id": "en-jackleg-en-adj-IYXUeI-n",
"links": [
[
"Ineptly",
"inept"
],
[
"makeshift",
"makeshift"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US) Ineptly built or operated; makeshift."
],
"tags": [
"US",
"not-comparable"
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0 0 0 0 0",
"tags": [
"adjective"
],
"word": "jacklegged"
}
],
"word": "jackleg"
}
{
"derived": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0 0",
"word": "jackleg fence"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Compare blackleg (a person who replaces striking workers; a cheater) and such expressions as jack of all trades, every man jack.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "jacklegs",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "jackleg (plural jacklegs)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"glosses": [
"A type of drill operated by means of compressed air."
],
"id": "en-jackleg-en-noun-jWH0ljAt",
"links": [
[
"drill",
"drill"
],
[
"compressed air",
"compressed air"
]
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "American English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1846 July, Editor’s Table, The Knickerbocker, volume 28, number 1, page 87",
"text": "[…] I, gentlemen and ladies, are a rale Scientificky! I ain’t none of your jack-legs.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1894, Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins, Hartford, Connecticut: American Publishing Company, page 311",
"text": "Would the reader care to know something about the story which I pulled out? He has been told many a time how the born-and-trained novelist works; won’t he let me round and complete his knowledge by telling him how the jack-leg does it?",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1955, Flannery O’Connor, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, published 1977, page 58",
"text": "“Lady,” he said, jerking his short arm up as if he could point with it to her house and yard and pump, “there ain’t a broken thing on this plantation that I couldn’t fix for you, one-arm jackleg or not […].”",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"text": "1999, David Horsley, Into the Wind, Houston, Texas: Winedale Publishing, “Tops for Trees,” p. 180,\nIf it were up to me, we’d have a city ordinance against incompetent pruning of trees. You need a permit to unclog a sewer or fix a light switch, but any jackleg with a chainsaw can climb up a ladder and undo in five minutes what Mother Nature took decades to accomplish."
}
],
"glosses": [
"An amateur; an untrained or incompetent person."
],
"id": "en-jackleg-en-noun-czTs2TUl",
"raw_glosses": [
"(US) An amateur; an untrained or incompetent person."
],
"tags": [
"US"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "American English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"_dis": "19 8 11 20 13 30",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1985, Wesley Ellis, chapter 9, in Lone Star and the California Oil War, New York: Jove, page 121",
"text": "[…] we ain’t called on to believe every smooth-talking jackleg who wanders in here.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1997, Jan Karon, chapter 7, in Out to Canaan, New York: Viking, page 113",
"text": "Guess what th’ low-down jackleg has done now.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A shyster or con artist; a gambler who cheats; a generally dishonest or reprehensible person."
],
"id": "en-jackleg-en-noun-8EZv-hj0",
"links": [
[
"shyster",
"shyster"
],
[
"con artist",
"con artist"
],
[
"gambler",
"gambler"
],
[
"cheat",
"cheat"
],
[
"reprehensible",
"reprehensible"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US) A shyster or con artist; a gambler who cheats; a generally dishonest or reprehensible person."
],
"tags": [
"US"
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0 0 0 0 0",
"tags": [
"adjective"
],
"word": "jacklegged"
}
],
"word": "jackleg"
}
{
"categories": [
"English adjectives",
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English nouns",
"English uncomparable adjectives"
],
"etymology_text": "Compare blackleg (a person who replaces striking workers; a cheater) and such expressions as jack of all trades, every man jack.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "jackleg (not comparable)",
"name": "en-adj"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adj",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"American English",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "1841, Letter to the editor, The Southern Planter, Volume I, No. 1, January 1841, p. 12,\nThe next year I had a projecting kind of jack leg carpenter, from Hanover, living with me in the capacity of overseer […]"
},
{
"text": "1941, Martha Colquitt, Interview published in Slave Narratives, Library of Congress Project, Volume 4: Georgia Narratives, Part 1,\nGrandma didn’t think chillun ought to see funerals, so de first one I ever seed, wuz when ma died two years atter de War wuz done over. A jackleg colored preacher talked, but he didn’t have sense ’nuff to preach a sho’ ’nuff sermon."
},
{
"text": "1957, Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, Wolfbane, Chapter 11, in Galaxy Science Fiction,\nHe was a doer, not a thinker; his skills were the skills of an artisan, a tinkerer, a jackleg mechanic."
},
{
"ref": "2010, Jabari Asim, “Day Work”, in A Taste of Honey, New York: Broadway Books, page 189",
"text": "At the gas station on the corner, a jackleg work crew was attaching plywood to the windows.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Amateur, untrained; incompetent."
],
"links": [
[
"Amateur",
"amateur"
],
[
"untrained",
"untrained"
],
[
"incompetent",
"incompetent"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US) Amateur, untrained; incompetent."
],
"tags": [
"US",
"not-comparable"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"American English",
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1911, Peter B. Kyne, chapter 14, in Captain Scraggs or The Green-Pea Pirates, New York: Grosset & Dunlap",
"text": "The little nosy reporter with the hair was fair crazy to come, but McGinty gets a jackleg doctor to examine him an’ swear that he’s sufferin’ from spatulation o’ the medulla oblongata, housemaid’s knee, and the hives.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1921, Sumner Charles Britton, chapter 4, in Dreamy Hollow, New York: World Syndicate Company, pages 49–50",
"text": "Villard’s great fortune should not be allowed to “dangle” in plain sight of “jack-leg lawyers,” while he, Parkins, awaited final results of the proceedings.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1988, Joyce Carol Thomas, chapter 1, in Journey, New York: Scholastic, page 27",
"text": "When I went to the so-called authorities for help I ran into jackleg politicians, wheeler-dealers, henchmen, finaglers and wire-pullers.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Dishonest, unscrupulous."
],
"links": [
[
"Dishonest",
"dishonest"
],
[
"unscrupulous",
"unscrupulous"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US) Dishonest, unscrupulous."
],
"tags": [
"US",
"not-comparable"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"American English",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1889, John McGovern, chapter 12, in David Lockwin: The People’s Idol, Chicago: Donohue",
"text": "The train is late […]. ¶ “Well, if I come to such a place as this I must expect a jackleg railroad […].”",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1989, Jack Vance, chapter 7, in Madouc, Novato, California: Underwood-Miller, page 168",
"text": "With the first good rain the entire jackleg contraption might collapse around my ears […]",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"text": "2005, William Hoffman, Lies, Montgomery, Alabama: River City Publishing, Chapter 23, p. 226,\nDriving the secondhand Chevy pickup, he visits not only major car dealerships but also every jackleg garage he happens upon in dusty sun-blasted towns of the Deep South."
},
{
"ref": "2012, Stephen King, The Wind Through the Keyhole, New York: Simon & Schuster, page 176",
"text": "[…] he went first to the barn […] and made a jackleg bed with hay and an old mule blanket.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Ineptly built or operated; makeshift."
],
"links": [
[
"Ineptly",
"inept"
],
[
"makeshift",
"makeshift"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US) Ineptly built or operated; makeshift."
],
"tags": [
"US",
"not-comparable"
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"tags": [
"adjective"
],
"word": "jacklegged"
}
],
"word": "jackleg"
}
{
"categories": [
"English adjectives",
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English nouns",
"English uncomparable adjectives"
],
"derived": [
{
"word": "jackleg fence"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Compare blackleg (a person who replaces striking workers; a cheater) and such expressions as jack of all trades, every man jack.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "jacklegs",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "jackleg (plural jacklegs)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"glosses": [
"A type of drill operated by means of compressed air."
],
"links": [
[
"drill",
"drill"
],
[
"compressed air",
"compressed air"
]
]
},
{
"categories": [
"American English",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1846 July, Editor’s Table, The Knickerbocker, volume 28, number 1, page 87",
"text": "[…] I, gentlemen and ladies, are a rale Scientificky! I ain’t none of your jack-legs.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1894, Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins, Hartford, Connecticut: American Publishing Company, page 311",
"text": "Would the reader care to know something about the story which I pulled out? He has been told many a time how the born-and-trained novelist works; won’t he let me round and complete his knowledge by telling him how the jack-leg does it?",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1955, Flannery O’Connor, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, published 1977, page 58",
"text": "“Lady,” he said, jerking his short arm up as if he could point with it to her house and yard and pump, “there ain’t a broken thing on this plantation that I couldn’t fix for you, one-arm jackleg or not […].”",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"text": "1999, David Horsley, Into the Wind, Houston, Texas: Winedale Publishing, “Tops for Trees,” p. 180,\nIf it were up to me, we’d have a city ordinance against incompetent pruning of trees. You need a permit to unclog a sewer or fix a light switch, but any jackleg with a chainsaw can climb up a ladder and undo in five minutes what Mother Nature took decades to accomplish."
}
],
"glosses": [
"An amateur; an untrained or incompetent person."
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US) An amateur; an untrained or incompetent person."
],
"tags": [
"US"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"American English",
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1985, Wesley Ellis, chapter 9, in Lone Star and the California Oil War, New York: Jove, page 121",
"text": "[…] we ain’t called on to believe every smooth-talking jackleg who wanders in here.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1997, Jan Karon, chapter 7, in Out to Canaan, New York: Viking, page 113",
"text": "Guess what th’ low-down jackleg has done now.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A shyster or con artist; a gambler who cheats; a generally dishonest or reprehensible person."
],
"links": [
[
"shyster",
"shyster"
],
[
"con artist",
"con artist"
],
[
"gambler",
"gambler"
],
[
"cheat",
"cheat"
],
[
"reprehensible",
"reprehensible"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US) A shyster or con artist; a gambler who cheats; a generally dishonest or reprehensible person."
],
"tags": [
"US"
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"tags": [
"adjective"
],
"word": "jacklegged"
}
],
"word": "jackleg"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.