jerk

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d͡ʒɜːk/
• (US) IPA^(key): /d͡ʒɝk/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)k

Probably from Middle English yerk (“sudden motion”) and Middle English yerkid (“tightly pulled”), from Old English ġearc (“ready, active, quick”) and Old English ġearcian (“to prepare, make ready, procure, furnish, supply”). Related to yare.

• yark

jerk (plural jerks)

1. A sudden, often uncontrolled movement, especially of the body.
   • 1856, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

     The black cloth bestrewn with white beads blew up from time to time, laying bare the coffin. The tired bearers walked more slowly, and it advanced with constant jerks, like a boat that pitches with every wave.

2. A quick, often unpleasant tug or shake.

   When I yell "OK," give the mooring line a good jerk!

3. (Canada, US, slang, derogatory) A person with unlikable or obnoxious qualities and behavior, typically mean, self-centered, or disagreeable.
   • I finally fired him, because he was being a real jerk to his customers, even to some of the staff.
   • You really are a jerk sometimes.
   • 1962, George Axelrod, The Manchurian Candidate, spoken by Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury), 1:23:39 from the start:

     Oh, Raymond―don't be such a jerk. Go and get yourself a drink or a tranquilizer or something.

4. (US, slang, derogatory) A dull or stupid person.
5. (physics, engineering) The rate of change in acceleration with respect to time.
6. (obsolete) A soda jerk.
7. (weightlifting) A lift in which the weight is taken with a quick motion from shoulder height to a position above the head with arms fully extended and held there for a brief time.

• Jerk is measured in metres per second cubed (m/s³) in SI units, or in feet per second cubed (ft/s³) in imperial units.

• (sudden movement): jolt, lurch, jump
• (quick tug): yank
• (unlikable person): asshole, bastard, twat, knobhead, tosser, wanker, git, dick; see Thesaurus:jerk.
• (stupid person): numbskull
• (physics, change in acceleration): jolt (British), surge, lurch

• (physics): jounce

jerk (third-person singular simple present jerks, present participle jerking, simple past and past participle jerked)

1. (intransitive) To make a sudden uncontrolled movement.
   • 1877, Anna Sewell, “Chapter 23”, in Black Beauty: […], London: Jarrold and Sons, […], →OCLC:

     York came to me first, whilst the groom stood at Ginger's head. He drew my head back and fixed the rein so tight that it was almost intolerable; then he went to Ginger, who was impatiently jerking her head up and down against the bit, as was her way now.

2. (transitive) To give a quick, often unpleasant tug or shake.
3. (US, slang, vulgar) To masturbate.
4. (obsolete) To beat, to hit.
5. (obsolete) To throw with a quick and suddenly arrested motion of the hand.

   to jerk a stone

6. (usually transitive, weightlifting) To lift using a jerk.
7. (obsolete) To flout with contempt.

• acceleration
• displacement
• velocity
• jounce

From American Spanish charquear, from charqui, from Quechua ch'arki.

jerk (uncountable)

1. (Caribbean, Jamaica) A rich, spicy Jamaican marinade.
   • 2016, Fodor's Essential Caribbean, Fodor's Travel, →ISBN:

     Sunshine ranks high in the island's greates burger debate, while the chicken egg rolls with mango chutney and jerk mayo and fabulous fish tacos elevate pub grub to an art.

2. (Caribbean, Jamaica) Meat (or sometimes vegetables) cured by jerking, in which it is coated in spices and slow-cooked over a fire or grill traditionally composed of green pimento wood positioned over burning coals; charqui.

   Jerk chicken is a local favorite.

• jerky (noun)

jerk (third-person singular simple present jerks, present participle jerking, simple past and past participle jerked)

1. To cure (meat) by cutting it into strips and drying it, originally in the sun.
   • 2011, Dominic Smith, Bright and Distant Shores, page 106:

     The Lemakot in the north strangled widows and threw them into the cremation pyres of their dead husbands. If they defeated potential invaders the New Irish hanged the vanquished from banyan trees, flensed their windpipes, removed their heads, left their intestines to jerk in the sun.

   • 2016, Fodor's Travel Guides, Fodor's Essential Caribbean, Fodor's Travel, →ISBN:

     This longtime West End eatery prepares chicken the way locals like it: curried, fried, jerked, and baked.

From English.

• IPA^(key): /dʒɛʁk/

jerk m (plural jerks)

1. jerk (dance)

• “jerk”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• jark, nerk

From Proto-Slavic *jьkrà.

jerk m

1. roe

• Muka, Arnošt (1921, 1928), “jerk”, in Słownik dolnoserbskeje rěcy a jeje narěcow (in German), St. Petersburg, Prague: ОРЯС РАН, ČAVU; Reprinted Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag, 2008
• Starosta, Manfred (1999), “jerk”, in Dolnoserbsko-nimski słownik / Niedersorbisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (in German), Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag

jerk (verbal noun jerkal, past participle jerkit)

1. to expect