jackleg
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jackleg
Where it comes from
From jack + leg. Compare blackleg (“a person who replaces striking workers; a cheater”) and such expressions as jack of all trades, every man jack.
adjective jacklegged
- Amateur, untrained; incompetent. 1841, Letter to the editor, The Southern Planter, Volume I, No. 1, January 1841, p. 12, The next year I had a projecting kind of jack leg carpenter, from Hanover, living with me in the capacity of overseer […]
- Dishonest, unscrupulous. The little nosy reporter with the hair was fair crazy to come, but McGinty gets a jackleg doctor to examine him an’ swear that he’s sufferin’ from spatulation o’ the medulla oblongata, housemaid’s knee, and the hives.
- Ineptly built or operated; makeshift. The train is late […]. ¶ “Well, if I come to such a place as this I must expect a jackleg railroad […].”
noun jacklegs · jacklegged
- A type of drill operated by means of compressed air.
- An amateur; an untrained or incompetent person. […] I, gentlemen and ladies, are a rale Scientificky! I ain’t none of your jack-legs.
- A shyster or con artist; a gambler who cheats; a generally dishonest or reprehensible person. “[…] we ain’t called on to believe every smooth-talking jackleg who wanders in here.”
Talk about this word "jackleg." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/jackleg. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. jackleg. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/jackleg "jackleg." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/jackleg.Cite this
@misc{jackleg_2026,
title = {jackleg},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/jackleg},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
