Jerk

How to spell jerk

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce jerk

What does jerk mean?

1. verbTo move, pull, or push something with a sudden sharp motion.
2. nounA quick, sharp, sudden movement or pull.
3. nounAn informal term for a foolish or contemptible person.
4. adjectiveDescribing meat marinated in a spicy Jamaican blend of seasonings and grilled or smoked.

Jerk in a sentence

• verb

  The old train would jerk forward whenever it left the platform.

• noun

  The lift started with a jerk that spilled his coffee.

• noun

  Only a real jerk would park across two disabled spaces.

• adjective

  The stall sold jerk chicken with rice and peas.

• verb

  She had to jerk the stuck drawer hard to get it open.

• noun

  With one jerk of the rope the sail came down.

Where does jerk come from?

Language of origin: Unknown

The everyday meaning of jerk, a quick sharp pull or twitch, appeared in English in the middle of the 1500s and seems to be imitative in origin, coined to echo the abrupt snapping motion it names; an earlier variant was spelled 'yerk', used of the sudden flick a craftsman gives a thread or a whip. Because it was invented as a sound-and-motion word rather than borrowed, its origin is genuinely uncertain, and dictionaries label it 'of unknown origin'. From the physical sense English later developed the figurative one, calling a foolish or contemptible person a jerk, a usage that grew up in American slang in the early twentieth century. The Caribbean cookery sense is a completely separate word that happens to share the spelling: it comes from the South American Spanish 'charqui', itself from the Quechua word 'ch'arki' meaning dried strips of meat, which also gave English 'jerky'. Keep in mind that the simple four-letter spelling carries these unrelated histories, so the trap is meaning rather than letters.

How the word is built

• jerk (a single, indivisible root word; no prefix or suffix)