See jerkwater in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for jerkwater meaning in English (5.8kB)
{
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{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "jerk",
"3": "water",
"gloss1": "to move with a sudden movement"
},
"expansion": "jerk (“to move with a sudden movement”) + water",
"name": "compound"
}
],
"etymology_text": "US mid-19th century. From jerk (“to move with a sudden movement”) + water. Refers to the need to supply the boilers of steam trains with water. In rural areas and small towns with no water tower, where the train did not stop, this was done by scooping (\"jerking\") water from a track pan.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "jerkwaters",
"tags": [
"plural"
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}
],
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"expansion": "jerkwater (plural jerkwaters)",
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],
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"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "American English",
"parents": [],
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{
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{
"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": [
"A train on a branch line."
],
"id": "en-jerkwater-en-noun-XItp3dLN",
"links": [
[
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"train"
],
[
"branch line",
"branch line"
]
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"(US, historical) A train on a branch line."
],
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},
{
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{
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "2016 April 19, Rex Sorgatz, “The Internet Really Has Changed Everything. Here’s the Proof.”, in Wired",
"text": "Twenty-five miles down the narrow arid highway, there is another town like Napoleon, a little smaller. And then twenty-five miles further, another. This chain of jerkwaters stretches for a lazy afternoon, until you finally encounter a cluster of people that almost resembles a modern civilization, with a movie theater and chain restaurants.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A jerkwater town."
],
"id": "en-jerkwater-en-noun-8ciFHiMZ",
"links": [
[
"jerkwater town",
"jerkwater town"
]
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˈd͡ʒɚk.wɔ.tɚ/",
"tags": [
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},
{
"audio": "en-au-jerkwater.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/ef/En-au-jerkwater.ogg/En-au-jerkwater.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/En-au-jerkwater.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "jerkwater"
}
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
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"3": "water",
"gloss1": "to move with a sudden movement"
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"name": "compound"
}
],
"etymology_text": "US mid-19th century. From jerk (“to move with a sudden movement”) + water. Refers to the need to supply the boilers of steam trains with water. In rural areas and small towns with no water tower, where the train did not stop, this was done by scooping (\"jerking\") water from a track pan.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "more jerkwater",
"tags": [
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]
},
{
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"tags": [
"superlative"
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"Of an inhabited place, small, insignificant, and backward."
],
"id": "en-jerkwater-en-adj-r0JO5vYJ",
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[
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"raw_glosses": [
"(US, colloquial, derogatory) Of an inhabited place, small, insignificant, and backward."
],
"related": [
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"word": "whistle-stop"
},
{
"word": "jerk water"
},
{
"word": "jerk-water"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "See: Thesaurus:remote place"
}
],
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"translations": [
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "málenʹkij",
"sense": "of an inhabited place, small, insignificant, backward",
"word": "ма́ленький"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "neznačítelʹnyj",
"sense": "of an inhabited place, small, insignificant, backward",
"word": "незначи́тельный"
}
]
}
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"tags": [
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},
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"audio": "en-au-jerkwater.ogg",
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"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/En-au-jerkwater.ogg",
"tags": [
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"word": "jerkwater"
}
{
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"English adjectives",
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"English countable nouns",
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"etymology_templates": [
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"name": "compound"
}
],
"etymology_text": "US mid-19th century. From jerk (“to move with a sudden movement”) + water. Refers to the need to supply the boilers of steam trains with water. In rural areas and small towns with no water tower, where the train did not stop, this was done by scooping (\"jerking\") water from a track pan.",
"forms": [
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],
"examples": [
{
"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": [
"A train on a branch line."
],
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],
[
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]
],
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"(US, historical) A train on a branch line."
],
"tags": [
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"ref": "2016 April 19, Rex Sorgatz, “The Internet Really Has Changed Everything. Here’s the Proof.”, in Wired",
"text": "Twenty-five miles down the narrow arid highway, there is another town like Napoleon, a little smaller. And then twenty-five miles further, another. This chain of jerkwaters stretches for a lazy afternoon, until you finally encounter a cluster of people that almost resembles a modern civilization, with a movie theater and chain restaurants.",
"type": "quotation"
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],
"glosses": [
"A jerkwater town."
],
"links": [
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]
]
}
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"name": "compound"
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],
"etymology_text": "US mid-19th century. From jerk (“to move with a sudden movement”) + water. Refers to the need to supply the boilers of steam trains with water. In rural areas and small towns with no water tower, where the train did not stop, this was done by scooping (\"jerking\") water from a track pan.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "more jerkwater",
"tags": [
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]
},
{
"form": "most jerkwater",
"tags": [
"superlative"
]
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"args": {},
"expansion": "jerkwater (comparative more jerkwater, superlative most jerkwater)",
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],
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"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adj",
"related": [
{
"word": "whistle-stop"
},
{
"word": "jerk water"
},
{
"word": "jerk-water"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"American English",
"English colloquialisms",
"English derogatory terms"
],
"glosses": [
"Of an inhabited place, small, insignificant, and backward."
],
"links": [
[
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"derogatory"
],
[
"insignificant",
"insignificant"
],
[
"backward",
"backward"
]
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"raw_glosses": [
"(US, colloquial, derogatory) Of an inhabited place, small, insignificant, and backward."
],
"tags": [
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"colloquial",
"derogatory"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
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"tags": [
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},
{
"audio": "en-au-jerkwater.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/ef/En-au-jerkwater.ogg/En-au-jerkwater.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/En-au-jerkwater.ogg",
"tags": [
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],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "See: Thesaurus:remote place"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "málenʹkij",
"sense": "of an inhabited place, small, insignificant, backward",
"word": "ма́ленький"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "neznačítelʹnyj",
"sense": "of an inhabited place, small, insignificant, backward",
"word": "незначи́тельный"
}
],
"word": "jerkwater"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-17 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-01 using wiktextract (0b52755 and 5cb0836). 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.