Jog

How to spell jog

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce jog

What does jog mean?

1. verbTo run at a slow, steady pace, usually for exercise.
2. verbTo give a slight push or to stimulate something, especially the memory.
3. nounA spell of running at a slow, steady pace.

Jog in a sentence

• verb

  Every morning before work she likes to jog around the park.

• verb

  An old photograph can sometimes jog a forgotten memory.

• noun

  He went for a quick jog before breakfast.

• verb

  The doctor advised him to jog for twenty minutes each day.

• verb

  A quick note on the fridge will jog his memory about the appointment.

• noun

  A gentle jog around the block helped clear her head.

Where does jog come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Jog first appears in English in the late 1500s, where it meant to give something a slight shake, knock, or push. It is generally taken to be a variant of the older verb 'shog', which meant to shake, jolt, or move with a jerky motion, and that earlier word may itself be partly imitative of the abrupt sound and feel of being jostled. From the idea of a small jolt came the figurative sense of giving a gentle nudge, as when one event 'jogs' a memory awake. The familiar meaning of running at a slow, steady, bouncing pace grew out of the same notion of a jolting, up-and-down movement and became widespread in the twentieth century, especially once jogging was popularised as a fitness pastime in America from the 1960s. Because the word is short and phonetically plain, its spelling is stable, with the only point of care being the soft initial 'j' rather than a 'g'.

How the word is built

• jog (single morpheme; no prefix or suffix, probably a variant of the older verb 'shog' meaning to jolt)