jack
noun · verb · adjective
Simple meaning
A name applied to a hypothetical or typical man.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
jakIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdʒæk
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
chiefly capitalized
A name applied to a hypothetical or typical man.
A man who serves as a sailor
A device used to hold a boot by the heel, to assist in removing the boot.
An electrical device consisting of a connector socket designed for the insertion of a plug
A mechanical device used to raise and (temporarily) support a heavy object, now especially to lift one side of a motor vehicle when (e.g.) changing a tyre.
A device or utensil.
verb
transitive
To raise or increase.
Memphis African-American slang
To fight.
intransitive
To dance by moving the torso forward and backward in a rippling motion.
transitivecolloquial
To steal (something), typically an automobile; to rob (someone).
intransitive or transitiveinformal
To jerk or move by jerking; to remove or move (something).
transitive
To physically raise using a jack.
adjective
Australia
Tired, disillusioned; fed up (with).
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A name applied to a hypothetical or typical man.
Used this way, jack is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A game in which jackstones are thrown and picked up in various groups between bounces of a small rubber ball.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Old World nocturnal canine mammal closely related to the dog.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A California food fish.
United States golfer considered by many to be the greatest golfer of all time (born in 1940).
A pale light sometimes seen at night over marshy ground.
A large poisonous agaric with orange caps and narrow clustered stalks.
A common scrubby deciduous tree of central and southeastern United States having dark bark and broad three-lobed (club-shaped) leaves.
A person able to do a variety of different jobs acceptably well.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.