jerk

1856, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
The black cloth bestrewn with white beads blew up from time to time, laying bare the coffin. The tired bearers walked more slowly, and it advanced with constant jerks, like a boat that pitches with every wave.

A barrel-organ in the street suddenly sprang with a jerk into a jovial tune.

1908, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, Bristol: J[ames] W[illiams] Arrowsmith, […]; London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company, →OCLC, page 114:

A sudden, often uncontrolled movement, especially of the body.

When I yell "OK," give the mooring line a good jerk!

Oh, Raymond―don't be such a jerk. Go and get yourself a drink or a tranquilizer or something.

1962, George Axelrod, 1:23:39 from the start, in The Manchurian Candidate, spoken by Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury):

And [Albert Fish] was dizzyingly happy about it, smiled as described the grizzly details of the tortures and the murders, appearing to the detectives and one of the detectives said "he appeared as the Devil himself." I mean this Albert F-, I mean this guy was a real jerk!

2013, Norm Macdonald Live, season 1, episode 3, spoken by Norm Macdonald:

I finally fired him, because he was being a real jerk to his customers, even to some of the staff.

You really are a jerk sometimes.

(originally Canada, US, slang, derogatory) A person with unlikable or obnoxious qualities and behavior, typically mean, self-centered, or disagreeable; an asshole.

(US, slang, derogatory) A stupid person; an idiot or fool.

(weightlifting) A lift in which the weight is taken with a quick motion from shoulder height to a position above the head with arms fully extended and held there for a brief time.

Jerk of the Year contender

(Internet slang) An act of satirizing behavior that is, to an extent, common in a community, especially in circlejerk subreddits.

Girls, hey, what's that you're doing
Girl, girl, what's that you're doing
You got to show me the steps to it
Somehow, gonna learn how to do it
Doing the jerk
Hey, do the jerk
Girl, come on and work
Hey, do the jerk.

1964, “The Jerk”, Don Julian (lyrics), performed by The Larks:

(preceded by definite article) A dance, popular in Western culture in the 1960s, in which the head and upper body is thrown forwards regularly to the beat of the music.

(physics, engineering) The rate of change in acceleration with respect to time.

Because oral sex deprecation and anti-gay bias both have long histories among humans

many of the words for "contemptible person" come from literal terms for anyone who performs oral sex or performs anal sex; see overlap at Thesaurus:gay man

Probably from Middle English yerk (“sudden motion”) and Middle English yerkid (“tightly pulled”), from Old English ġearc (“ready, active, quick”) and Old English ġearcian (“to prepare, make ready, procure, furnish, supply”). Cognate with Scots yerk (“to jerk”). Related also to English yare (“ready”).


jerk

York came to me first, whilst the groom stood at Ginger's head. He drew my head back and fixed the rein so tight that it was almost intolerable; then he went to Ginger, who was impatiently jerking her head up and down against the bit, as was her way now.

[1877], Anna Sewell, “A Strike for Liberty”, in Black Beauty: […], London: Jarrold and Sons, […], →OCLC, part II, page 106:

(intransitive) To make a sudden uncontrolled movement.

(transitive) To give a quick, often unpleasant tug or shake.

This is jerking’s 9/11

(Internet slang) To satirize behavior that is, to an extent, common in a community, especially in circlejerk subreddits.

to jerk a stone

(obsolete) To throw with a quick and suddenly arrested motion of the hand.

(usually transitive, weightlifting) To lift using a jerk.

en-verb

jerk (third-person singular simple present jerks, present participle jerking, simple past and past participle jerked)

jerks (present singular third-person)
jerking (participle present)
jerked (participle past)
jerked (past)

يرتعش

intransitive: to make a sudden uncontrolled movement

يهز

transitive: to give a quick, often unpleasant tug or shake


jerk

Sunshine ranks high in the island's greates burger debate, while the chicken egg rolls with mango chutney and jerk mayo and fabulous fish tacos elevate pub grub to an art.

2016, Fodor's Essential Caribbean, Fodor's Travel, →ISBN:

(Caribbean, Jamaica) A rich, spicy Jamaican marinade.

Jerk chicken is a local favorite.

(Caribbean, Jamaica) Meat (or sometimes vegetables) cured by jerking, in which it is coated in spices and slow-cooked over a fire or grill traditionally composed of green pimento wood positioned over burning coals; charqui.

From American Spanish charquear, from charqui, from Quechua ch'arki.


jerk

Snow stalled him in the timber; his food was all but gone when he managed to kill an antelope and jerk a supply of venison.

1954, Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West, Houghton Mifflin, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 37:

The Lemakot in the north strangled widows and threw them into the cremation pyres of their dead husbands. If they defeated potential invaders the New Irish hanged the vanquished from banyan trees, flensed their windpipes, removed their heads, left their intestines to jerk in the sun.

2011, Dominic Smith, Bright and Distant Shores, page 106:

This longtime West End eatery prepares chicken the way locals like it: curried, fried, jerked, and baked.

2016, Fodor's Travel Guides, Fodor's Essential Caribbean, Fodor's Travel, →ISBN:

To cure (meat) by cutting it into strips and drying it, originally in the sun.

曬乾 /晒干

to cure by cutting into strips and drying


jerk

head

jerk (verbal noun jerkal, past participle jerkit)

jerkal (noun-from-verb)
jerkit (participle past)
jerk
yerk
n'yerk