"jerk water" meaning in All languages combined

See jerk water on Wiktionary

Adjective [English]

Forms: more jerk water [comparative], most jerk water [superlative]
Head templates: {{en-adj}} jerk water (comparative more jerk water, superlative most jerk water)
  1. (US, colloquial, derogatory) Of inhabited places, small, insignificant, isolated, backwards Tags: US, colloquial, derogatory Derived forms: jerkwater, jerk-water
    Sense id: en-jerk_water-en-adj-7szafBDn Categories (other): American English

Verb [English]

Forms: jerks water [present, singular, third-person], jerking water [participle, present], jerked water [participle, past], jerked water [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} jerk water (third-person singular simple present jerks water, present participle jerking water, simple past and past participle jerked water)
  1. (US, rail transport, apocryphal) To fill a steam locomotive water tank manually from natural water supplies (a hypothetical process whose use has been discredited). Tags: US Categories (topical): Rail transportation
    Sense id: en-jerk_water-en-verb-T9XuZCnb Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 9 43 48 Topics: rail-transport, railways, transport
  2. (US, rail transport, dated) To scoop water from a track pan mounted on the tracks directly into a steam engine's tank without stopping. Tags: US, dated Categories (topical): Rail transportation
    Sense id: en-jerk_water-en-verb-A~aj6Fql Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 9 43 48 Topics: rail-transport, railways, transport

Download JSON data for jerk water meaning in All languages combined (5.0kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "jerks water",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
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      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "jerking water",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "jerked water",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "jerked water",
      "tags": [
        "past"
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
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          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Rail transportation",
          "orig": "en:Rail transportation",
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            "Fundamental"
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        },
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          "_dis": "9 43 48",
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1954, Mari Sandoz, The Buffalo Hunters: The Story of the Hide Men, page 171",
          "text": "The Santa Fe, called the Jerk Water route because they \"jerked\" water from ponds and wallows for the engine, still frayed out at the Kansas line.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1975 Mar, Indiana Historical Society, Indiana Magazine of History, volume 71, number 1, page 355",
          "text": "[…] by bailing from near streams with buckets, (the brake-man called this operation jerking water) and from this the road gets its name of jerkwater road.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To fill a steam locomotive water tank manually from natural water supplies (a hypothetical process whose use has been discredited)."
      ],
      "id": "en-jerk_water-en-verb-T9XuZCnb",
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, rail transport, apocryphal) To fill a steam locomotive water tank manually from natural water supplies (a hypothetical process whose use has been discredited)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
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      "topics": [
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        {
          "ref": "1979, The Train Dispatcher - Volumes 61-62, page 49",
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          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2001, Anthony J. Bianculli, Trains and Technology: Track and structures, page 19610",
          "text": "The early, crude \"jerk water\" device applied by the New York Central is shown in figure 8.24.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Kevin EuDaly, Mike Schafer, Steve Jessup, The Complete Book of North American Railroading, page 335",
          "text": "Towns with track pans no longer had as many trains stop there, and they became derisively known as “jerkwater” towns, where the trains would jerk water and just keep on going.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To scoop water from a track pan mounted on the tracks directly into a steam engine's tank without stopping."
      ],
      "id": "en-jerk_water-en-verb-A~aj6Fql",
      "links": [
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          "rail transport",
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        [
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        ],
        [
          "tank",
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        ],
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          "stop",
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, rail transport, dated) To scoop water from a track pan mounted on the tracks directly into a steam engine's tank without stopping."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "dated"
      ],
      "topics": [
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    }
  ],
  "word": "jerk water"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more jerk water",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most jerk water",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
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        {
          "text": "c. 1920, Ring Lardner, The Real Dope\nBut any way from the number of jerk water burgs we went through you would think we was on the Monon and the towns all looks so much like the other that […]."
        }
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  "word": "jerk water"
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{
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  "forms": [
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      "form": "jerks water",
      "tags": [
        "present",
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    {
      "form": "jerking water",
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    },
    {
      "form": "jerked water",
      "tags": [
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    },
    {
      "form": "jerked water",
      "tags": [
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  "head_templates": [
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
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        "Quotation templates to be cleaned",
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          "ref": "1954, Mari Sandoz, The Buffalo Hunters: The Story of the Hide Men, page 171",
          "text": "The Santa Fe, called the Jerk Water route because they \"jerked\" water from ponds and wallows for the engine, still frayed out at the Kansas line.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1975 Mar, Indiana Historical Society, Indiana Magazine of History, volume 71, number 1, page 355",
          "text": "[…] by bailing from near streams with buckets, (the brake-man called this operation jerking water) and from this the road gets its name of jerkwater road.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
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        "To fill a steam locomotive water tank manually from natural water supplies (a hypothetical process whose use has been discredited)."
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        "(US, rail transport, apocryphal) To fill a steam locomotive water tank manually from natural water supplies (a hypothetical process whose use has been discredited)."
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      "tags": [
        "US"
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          "ref": "1979, The Train Dispatcher - Volumes 61-62, page 49",
          "text": "In 1870 at Montrose, N.Y., the New York Central made the first installation of a track pan and scoop to permit locomotives to take water on the fly. Since these installations invariably were in tiny communities, and since they permitted locomotives literally to “jerk water”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2001, Anthony J. Bianculli, Trains and Technology: Track and structures, page 19610",
          "text": "The early, crude \"jerk water\" device applied by the New York Central is shown in figure 8.24.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Kevin EuDaly, Mike Schafer, Steve Jessup, The Complete Book of North American Railroading, page 335",
          "text": "Towns with track pans no longer had as many trains stop there, and they became derisively known as “jerkwater” towns, where the trains would jerk water and just keep on going.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
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        "To scoop water from a track pan mounted on the tracks directly into a steam engine's tank without stopping."
      ],
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          "rail transport",
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        [
          "track pan",
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        [
          "tank",
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        ],
        [
          "stop",
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, rail transport, dated) To scoop water from a track pan mounted on the tracks directly into a steam engine's tank without stopping."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "dated"
      ],
      "topics": [
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  "word": "jerk water"
}

{
  "categories": [
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    "English entries with incorrect language header",
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    "English verbs"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "jerkwater"
    },
    {
      "word": "jerk-water"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more jerk water",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
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    },
    {
      "form": "most jerk water",
      "tags": [
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          "text": "c. 1920, Ring Lardner, The Real Dope\nBut any way from the number of jerk water burgs we went through you would think we was on the Monon and the towns all looks so much like the other that […]."
        }
      ],
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      ],
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        "(US, colloquial, derogatory) Of inhabited places, small, insignificant, isolated, backwards"
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  "word": "jerk water"
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.