Jacks

How to spell jacks

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce jacks

What does jacks mean?

1. nounA children's game played by tossing and catching small six-pointed metal or plastic pieces while bouncing a ball.
2. nounMechanical devices used to raise a heavy object such as a vehicle off the ground.
3. nounThe court cards ranking between the ten and the queen, one in each suit.
4. verbRaises something, especially a vehicle, using a mechanical lifting device.

Jacks in a sentence

• noun

  The children played jacks on the kitchen floor after lunch.

• noun

  The mechanic kept two hydraulic jacks in the corner of the garage.

• noun

  He was dealt a pair of jacks in the opening hand.

• verb

  He carefully jacks up the car before removing the wheel.

• noun

  The set came with a small rubber ball and ten metal jacks.

• noun

  The workshop ran short of jacks during the busy morning.

Where does jacks come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows out of the medieval personal name Jack, which began life in English as an affectionate pet form of John. John reached English through Old French Jehan and Latin Johannes, and traces back ultimately to the Hebrew name Yohanan, meaning roughly 'God is gracious.' By the late Middle Ages Jack had become such a common name for an ordinary man that it turned into a general word for a labourer or fellow, and from there it attached itself to all sorts of handy mechanical helpers and stand-ins: the small device that lifts a heavy load, the lowest court card, the flag flown at a ship's bow, and the pieces in the children's game. The plural form 'jacks' simply adds the regular -s ending, and the same -s serves the verb 'to jack' in its third-person form. Because the spelling is so regular, the only thing to remember is the 'ck' that the short vowel demands before the -s.

How the word is built

• jack (common noun from the name Jack)
• -s (plural / third-person verb ending)