jack

noun

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

   “jack of plate”

   “jack of mail”

   “padded jack”

   “Their horsemen are with jacks for most part clad, / Their horses are both swift of course and strong, / They run on horseback with a slender gad, / And like a speare, but that it is more long.”

   “threescore men in jacks or light coats of mail”

2. (capitalized)A man.

   “After Dinner they frisk away to some known Place of Rendezvous, where (at Night) every Jack has his Jill and every Jill has her Jack.”

3. (US, countable)A man.

   “Call you me daughter? now I promiſe you / You haue ſhewd a tender fatherly regard, / To wiſh me wed to one halfe Lunaticke, / A mad-cap ruffian, and a ſwearing Iacke, / That thinkes with oathes to face the matter out.”

4. (colloquial)A man.
5. (slang)A man.

   “When Wardell arrived on the scene, they were surprised to find that he was unshaven, and did not look too happy. One of them remarked: "The 'Jacks' (detectives) are after you."”

   “'I'd like you to meet DCI Henry Christie,' FB was saying. The older of the two jacks reached forward and gave Henry's right paw a quick tug.”

6. (archaic)A man.
7. (Canada, US, colloquial)A man.
8. (India, historical, slang)A man.

   “I hope to God his theories will not unman him in action, that he will not be musing and refining when he should be leading the Jacks […]”

9. A device or utensil.

   “Our hero, among his other remarks, had obſerved, that in this place there was no ſuch utenſil as a jack, and that all the ſpits were turned by dogs, […]”

10. A device or utensil.

    “Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap / To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, / Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, / At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!”

    “[W]hat the devil makes you so dull, Letitia? I thought to have found you popping about as brisk as the jacks of your harpsichord.”

    “In the virginal, an upright piece of wood fixed to the key-lever and fitted with a quill which plucked the string as the jack rose when the key was pressed down. Here used as "key."”

11. A device or utensil.
12. (obsolete)A device or utensil.
13. A device or utensil.
14. A device or utensil.

    “She used a jack to lift her car and changed the tire.”

15. A device or utensil.
16. (archaic)A device or utensil.
17. (obsolete)A device or utensil.
18. (obsolete)A device or utensil.
19. A device or utensil.

    “telephone jack”

20. (historical, regional)A non-tool object or thing.

    “Dead VVine that ſtinks of the Borrachio, ſup / From a fovvl Jack, or greaſie Maple Cup?”

    “He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon our quarter-of-a-penny loaf—our crug—moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden piggings, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from.”

21. A non-tool object or thing.
22. A non-tool object or thing.

    “like an uninstructed bowler, so to speak, who thinks to attain the jack, by delivering his bowl straight forward upon it”

23. A non-tool object or thing.
24. (UK, archaic, historical, regional)A non-tool object or thing.

    “To a pound of sugar put a jack of water.”

25. (obsolete, slang)A non-tool object or thing.
26. (archaic, historical)A non-tool object or thing.
27. A non-tool object or thing.
28. (US)A non-tool object or thing.

    “a heron when seeing a deer attracted by the jack”

29. (US, slang)A non-tool object or thing.

    “First off Regan carried fifteen grand, packed it in his clothes all the time. Real money, they tell me. Not just a top card and a bunch of hay. That's a lot of jack (or jack-shit) […].”

    “Angels come from everywhere with lots of jack, and when you lose it, there's no attack. Where could you get money that you don't give back? Let's go on with the show”

30. (Canada, US)A non-tool object or thing.

    “[A] quart of raisin jack was divided between us with the result that tha day proper (after the night before) was spent very quietly, watered and Bromo-Seltzered, with amusing anecdotes occasionally sprouting from towelled head to towelled head.”

31. (euphemistic, slang)A non-tool object or thing.

    “You haven't done jack. Get up and get this room cleaned up right now!”

    “Sergeant Albrecht: Hey, c'mon, read the file! Shelly Webster, held on for 30 hours in intensive care and, her body finally just gave up. I saw it man, I couldn't do jack for her.”

    “She didn't know what he was doing on the Darvish farm, or how long he'd been there, or how long he planned to stay. She didn't even know if it was his plane. In other words, jack, Mira thought, in a spike of furious resentment against herself.”

32. (slang)A non-tool object or thing.
33. (slang)A non-tool object or thing.
34. A plant or animal.
35. (US)A plant or animal.
36. A plant or animal.
37. (US)A plant or animal.

    “Cottontails were taken along the creeks, under the willows. Their flesh was preferable to that of the jacks[…]"”

38. A plant or animal.
39. A plant or animal.
40. (colloquial)A plant or animal.

    “Usually a jack that makes male flowers has only one main leaf (right), while female plants have two. […] The specific taxonomy of Jack-in-the Pulpit, a member of the Arum Family (Araceae), is rather up in the air. Some botanists believe all jacks are just one species, Arisaema triphyllum, while others claim there are as many as three: A. triphyllum, A. atrorubens, and A. stewardsonii.”

    “In fact, most male Jacks are under 14 inches tall. Most Jacks over 14 inches tend to be Jills.”

41. (colloquial)A plant or animal.

    “Lifting the flap at the top of the spathe reveals our slender and round-headed friend "Jack," known better to botanists as the spadix.”

    “On every kid’s list of favourite plants is our quirky Jack-in-the-pulpit with its green, red or purple spadices (the Jacks) and hooded green-, red- or almost black-striped spathes (the pulpits).”

42. A plant or animal.
43. The edible fruit of the Asian tree (Artocarpus heterophyllus); also the tree itself.

    “A mock living burial of the principal performer, who is placed in a pit, which is covered with planks, on the top of which a sacrifice is performed, with a fire kindled with jack wood (Artocarpus integrifolia) and a plant called erinna.”

44. The related tree Mangifera caesia.
45. (slang)A home run.

    “The year before ('76) Kingman had 37 jacks with only 502 PAs. Is that the limit?”

    “Me three. I never have quite understood all the "three true outcomes" fetish around here. I mean, I know that building an offense around walks and 3-run jacks embodies the Sabermetric Virtues, and especially in today's conditions that's the way to win, but man, it sure leads to some slow, boring games.”

    “3-run jacks are just another tool in a team's chest. The goal is to make the playoffs, then win at least one more game than your opponent each round. And repeat next year, and the year after that, and...”

46. (informal)A placeholder or conventional name for any man, particularly a younger, lower-class man.

    “Well, if you ever plan to motor west / Jack, take my way, it's the highway that's the best / Get your kicks on Route 66”

47. (abbreviation, alt-of, archaic, ellipsis, informal)Ellipsis of Jack Tar, a sailor.

    “When he went home on leave he rioted on a large scale—pompously. Jack ashore—with a difference—in externals only.”

48. (abbreviation, alt-of, archaic, ellipsis, informal)Ellipsis of Jack Rum, a soldier.
49. A jacqueminot rose.

verb

1. (transitive)To physically raise using a jack.

   “He jacked the car so that he could replace the brake pads.”

   “Large cranes were virtually non-existent in the areas I worked with this truck, so we jacked everything on and off[.]”

2. (transitive)To raise or increase.

   “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.

   “Fruit of the orchard has been "jacked" these many generations, with Plymouth Rockers putting the hard cider barrel down into the ground to freeze, and […]”

   “The potency of a jacked beverage depends on the temperature applied to the original beverage; the colder the liquor, the more water can be frozen out […]. In New England, where this technique was historically used, people could get applejack to around 30 percent alcohol […].”

4. (colloquial, transitive)To steal (something), typically an automobile; to rob (someone).

   “Someone jacked my car last night!”

   “A kid in a M3's getting jacked right in front of me”

   “Now I'm in a new whip counting the big stack / Yellow-gold chain and the diamonds are black / Jack me? Nah, you don't wanna do that”

5. (intransitive)To dance by moving the torso forward and backward in a rippling motion.
6. (colloquial, vulgar)To jack off, to masturbate.

   “I don't even care about mine, I can get my shit off while jacking in the shower.”

7. To fight.
8. (informal, intransitive, transitive)To jerk or move by jerking; to remove or move (something).
9. (slang, transitive)To hit (the ball) hard; especially, to hit (the ball) out of the field, producing a home run.

   “An excellent piece of work, Wayne thought, so good in fact, he wasn’t surprised when Bailey walked to the plate and on the first pitch jacked the ball far into the parking lot outside the left-field fence for a tournament winning homerun.”

   “Therefore, even though Vizquel is certainly not a power hitter, at times he will try to jack the ball, perhaps pulling it with just enough oomph to carry down the line for a homer.”

   “Maybe he hung a curve ball to somebody and they jacked it out of the park on him and he wasn’t upset about it.”

adj

1. (Australia)Tired, disillusioned; fed up (with).

   “In the end, black and white were both crawling on the ground in reconciliation. Both saying that they were plain jack of each other.”

name

1. (countable, uncountable)A unisex given name derived from a pet form of the name John. Occasionally a diminutive of other given names such as Jackson, Jacob, Jacqueline or Jonathan.

   “Since every Jack became a gentleman there's many a gentle person made a Jack.”

   “Heere comes leane Iacke, heere comes bare-bone. How now my ſweet Creature of Bombaſt, how long is't agoe, Iacke, ſince thou ſaw'ſt thine owne Knee?”

   “JACK. Well, really, Gwendolen, I must say that I think that there are lots of other much nicer names. I think Jack, for instance, a charming name. GWENDOLEN. Jack?...No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations...I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John!”

   “Chief Judge Jack Tuter, who oversees the 17th Judicial Circuit Court in Fort Lauderdale, released a statement over the weekend berating Ehrlich for her conduct.”

2. (countable, uncountable)A surname.
3. (colloquial, countable, uncountable)Jack Daniel's, a brand of Tennessee whiskey.

   “Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack.”

   “Got a boy back home in Michigan / And it tastes like Jack when I'm kissing him / So I told him that I never really liked his friends / Now he's gone and he's calling me a bitch again”

4. (countable, uncountable)An unincorporated community in Coffee County, Alabama, United States.
5. (countable, uncountable)An unincorporated community in Dent County, Missouri, United States.
6. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, ellipsis, uncountable)Ellipsis of Monterey Jack, a type of cheese.