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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

jack.

A coarse medieval coat of defence, especially one made of leather.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈd͡ʒæk/[ˈd͡ʒæk]
  1. A coarse medieval coat of defence, especially one made of leather.

    jack of plate
    jack of mail
Where this word comes from

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

noun/ˈd͡ʒæk/[ˈd͡ʒæk]
  1. A man. A name applied to a hypothetical or typical man.

    capitalized
  2. A man. A man, a fellow; a typical man; men in general.

    US · countable
  3. A man. A sailor.

    colloquial
  4. A man. A policeman or detective; (Australia) a military policeman.

    slang
  5. A man. A manual laborer.

    archaic
  6. A man. A lumberjack.

    Canada · US · colloquial
  7. A man. A sepoy.

    India · historical · slang
  8. A mechanical device or utensil used for lifting. A device for turning a spit; a smokejack or roasting jack.

  9. A mechanical device or utensil used for lifting. 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.

  10. A mechanical device or utensil used for lifting. a tool used in manual production of glass objects (like bottles or wine glasses).

  11. A mechanical device or utensil used for lifting. A support for wood being sawn; a sawhorse or sawbuck.

    obsolete
  12. A mechanical device or utensil used for lifting. A device used to hold a boot by the heel, to assist in removing the boot.

  13. A mechanical device or utensil used for lifting. 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.

    She used a jack to lift her car and changed the tire.
  14. A mechanical device or utensil used for lifting. 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.

  15. A mechanical device or utensil used for lifting. A wedge for separating rocks rent by blasting.

    archaic
  16. A mechanical device or utensil used for lifting. A grating device used to separate and guide the threads in a warping machine; a heck-box.

    obsolete
  17. A mechanical device or utensil used for lifting. A machine for twisting the sliver as it leaves a carding machine, in the preparation of yarn.

    obsolete
  18. A mechanical device or utensil used for lifting. A switch for a jack plug, a jackknife switch; (more generally) a socket used to connect a device to a circuit, network etc.

    telephone jack
  19. A non-tool object or thing. A pitcher or other vessel for holding liquid, especially alcoholic drink; a black-jack.

    historical · regional
  20. A non-tool object or thing. 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.

  21. A non-tool object or thing. A counter used to represent money in a gambling establishment.

    obsolete
  22. A non-tool object or thing. A small, typically white, ball used as the target ball in bowls; a jack-ball.

  23. A non-tool object or thing. A small ship's flag used as a signal or identifying device; a small flag flown at the bow of the vessel.

  24. A non-tool object or thing. A measure of liquid corresponding to a quarter of a pint.

    UK · archaic · historical · regional
  25. A non-tool object or thing. A fake coin designed to look like a sovereign.

    obsolete · slang
  26. A non-tool object or thing. A jackcrosstree.

    archaic · historical
  27. A non-tool object or thing. A small, six-pointed playing piece used in the game of jacks.

  28. A non-tool object or thing. A torch or other light used in hunting to attract or dazzle game at night.

    US
  29. A non-tool object or thing. Money, cash.

    US · slang
  30. A non-tool object or thing. A strong alcoholic liquor, especially home-distilled or illicit.

    Canada · US
  31. A non-tool object or thing. Nothing, not anything, jack shit.

    euphemistic · slang
    You haven't done jack. Get up and get this room cleaned up right now!
  32. A non-tool object or thing. The eleventh batsman to come to the crease in an innings.

    slang
  33. A non-tool object or thing. A smooth often ovoid large gravel or small cobble in a natural water course.

    slang
  34. A plant or animal. A pike, especially when young.

  35. A plant or animal. A male ass, especially when kept for breeding.

    US
  36. A plant or animal. Any of the marine fish in the family Carangidae.

  37. A plant or animal. A jackrabbit.

    US
  38. A plant or animal. A bocaccio (Sebastes paucispinis), a large California rockfish.

  39. A plant or animal. white mango (Mangifera caesia). (See .)

  40. A plant or animal. A Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema), often capitalized Jack.

    colloquial
  41. A plant or animal. Spadix of a plant (also capitalized Jack).

    colloquial
  42. A plant or animal. Any member of species 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.

Where this word comes from

Transferred use of the personal name Jack. (cricket: eleventh batsman): An allusion to the jack in playing cards, which follows the 10.

verb/ˈd͡ʒæk/[ˈd͡ʒæk]
  1. To physically raise using a jack.

    transitive
    He jacked the car so that he could replace the brake pads.
  2. To raise or increase.

    transitive
    If you want to jack your stats you just write off failures as invalid results.
  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. To steal (something), typically an automobile; to rob (someone).

    colloquial · transitive
    Someone jacked my car last night!
  5. To dance by moving the torso forward and backward in a rippling motion.

    intransitive
  6. To jack off, to masturbate.

    colloquial · vulgar
  7. To fight.

  8. To jerk or move by jerking; to remove or move (something).

    informal · intransitive · transitive
Where this word comes from

Transferred use of the personal name Jack. (cricket: eleventh batsman): An allusion to the jack in playing cards, which follows the 10.

adj/ˈd͡ʒæk/[ˈd͡ʒæk]
  1. Tired, disillusioned; fed up (with).

    Australia
Where this word comes from

Transferred use of the personal name Jack. (cricket: eleventh batsman): An allusion to the jack in playing cards, which follows the 10.

noun/ˈd͡ʒæk/[ˈd͡ʒæk]
  1. A jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus, syn. Artocarpus integrifolia).

Where this word comes from

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

noun/ˈd͡ʒæk/[ˈd͡ʒæk]
  1. White mango (Mangifera caesia) of fruit-bearing plants.

Where this word comes from

Named after Scottish botanist William Jack, who described the species.

noun/ˈd͡ʒæk/[ˈd͡ʒæk]
  1. A home run.

    slang
verb/ˈd͡ʒæk/[ˈd͡ʒæk]
  1. To hit (the ball) hard; especially, to hit (the ball) out of the field, producing a home run.

    slang · transitive
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.