Jackleg

Pronunciation varies by accent · adjective

Meaning

(US) Amateur, untrained; incompetent..

Definitions by Sense

1. (US) Amateur, untrained; incompetent.
2. (US) Dishonest, unscrupulous.
3. (US) Ineptly built or operated; makeshift.
4. A type of drill operated by means of compressed air.
5. (US) An amateur; an untrained or incompetent person.
6. (US) A shyster or con artist; a gambler who cheats; a generally dishonest or reprehensible person.

Example Sentences

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 […]

1941, Martha Colquitt, Interview published in Slave Narratives, Library of Congress Project, Volume 4: Georgia Narratives, Part 1, Grandma didn’t think chillun ought to see funerals, so de first one I ever seed, wuz when ma died two years atter de War wuz done over. A jackleg colored preacher talked, but he didn’t have sense ’nuff to preach a sho’ ’nuff sermon.

1957, Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, Wolfbane, Chapter 11, in Galaxy Science Fiction, He was a doer, not a thinker; his skills were the skills of an artisan, a tinkerer, a jackleg mechanic.

At the gas station on the corner, a jackleg work crew was attaching plywood to the windows.

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.

Villard’s great fortune should not be allowed to “dangle” in plain sight of “jack-leg lawyers,” while he, Parkins, awaited final results of the proceedings.

When I went to the so-called authorities for help I ran into jackleg politicians, wheeler-dealers, henchmen, finaglers and wire-pullers.

2005, William Hoffman, Lies, Montgomery, Alabama: River City Publishing, Chapter 23, p. 226, Driving the secondhand Chevy pickup, he visits not only major car dealerships but also every jackleg garage he happens upon in dusty sun-blasted towns of the Deep South.

Synonyms for jackleg

Antonyms for jackleg

Related Words

Word Forms

• jacklegged
• jacklegs

Usage Notes

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