Jab

How to spell jab

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce jab

What does jab mean?

1. verbTo poke or thrust at something sharply with a pointed object or the fist.
2. nounA short, straight punch or a quick poking movement.
3. nounAn injection or vaccination given with a needle.

Jab in a sentence

• verb

  He would jab the elevator button repeatedly when he was running late.

• noun

  The boxer landed a sharp jab to his opponent's chin.

• noun

  The clinic offered a flu jab to everyone over sixty-five.

• verb

  The nurse warned her not to jab the swollen finger.

• noun

  She gave him a friendly jab in the ribs to get his attention.

• noun

  He booked an appointment for his booster jab next week.

Where does jab come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Jab began life around 1825 as a Scottish and northern English variant of the older verb 'job', which from the 1500s meant to peck, stab, or thrust sharply, much as a bird drives its beak into something. The spelling shifted the vowel from 'o' to 'a' to capture the short, blunt sound of the action, and the word soon spread into general English use. By the late 1800s boxing had adopted it for a short, straight punch delivered without a full wind-up, and the noun followed naturally. In twentieth-century British usage it picked up the familiar informal sense of an injection or vaccination, since a needle is pushed in with one quick stab. The single 'b' and the plain three-letter shape mean the word is rarely misspelt, although its origin in the older 'job' explains the abrupt, percussive feel it still carries.

How the word is built

• jab (a single unanalysable root; a 19th-century variant of the dialect verb 'job', to peck or stab)