Meaning

(ambitransitive) To bump into or brush against while in motion; to push aside..

Definitions by Sense

1. (ambitransitive) To bump into or brush against while in motion; to push aside.
2. (intransitive) To move through by pushing and shoving.
3. (transitive) To be close to or in physical contact with.
4. (intransitive) To contend or vie in order to acquire something.
5. (dated, slang) To pick or attempt to pick pockets.
6. The act of jostling someone or something; push, shove.
7. The action of a jostling crowd.

Example Sentences

Besides, various are the paths to power and fame which by accident or choice men pursue, and though they jostle against each other, for men of the same profession are seldom friends, yet there is a much greater number of their fellow-creatures with whom they never clash. But women are very differently situated with respect to each other—for they are all rivals.

It is not that there are several systems of movement, physical, intellectual, and moral, which are perpetually jostling each other, or which clash whenever they come in contact, and which move on by the one vanquishing the other. But, on the contrary, each of these economies takes its uninterrupted course, as if there were no other moving within the same space […]

[…] when the lord of a Lincolnshire or Shropshire manor appeared in Fleet Street, he was as easily distinguished from the resident population as a Turk or a Lascar. […] Bullies jostled him into the kennel. Hackney coachmen splashed him from head to foot. […]

His locks […] / […] like a juicy and jostling shock / Of bluebells sheaved in May

Axia and Amory, acquaintances of an hour, jostled behind a waiter to a table at a point of vantage; there they took seats and watched.

Allow the person in front of you sufficient space to turn around from the bar with their drinks. Do not jostle past them.

[…] the advantages of diversification of structure, with the accompanying differences of habit and constitution, determine that the inhabitants, which thus jostle each other most closely, shall, as a general rule, belong to what we call different genera and orders.

1917, Rudyard Kipling, “The Children,” poem accompanying the story “The Honours of War” in A Diversity of Creatures, London: Macmillan, pp. 129-130, […] Our statecraft, our learning Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour.

Word Forms

• jostles
• jostling
• jostled

Synonyms for jostle

Related Words

When Should You Use Jostle?

Use jostle when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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