Word.ws English Dictionary

circle jerk

circle jerk noun: a group of people jerking off (“masturbating”) together (with or without interpersonal contact).

Noun

circle jerk (plural circle jerks)

  1. (slang, vulgar, literal) A group of people jerking off (“masturbating”) together (with or without interpersonal contact).
    • Three screaming queens, the Abbot, the Abbes an the Bishop, who hold circle jerks in their rooms for other students with similar proclivities.1977 August 20, Robert Etherington, “John Horne Burns and His Enemies”, in Gay Community News, volume 5, number 7, page 11
    • This is Melville's real heaven, an all-male platoon, each with his hand in someone's pocket. The circle jerk is another Romantic uroboros.1990, Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae, Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 587
  2. (derogatory, slang, vulgar) Any group or group activity indulging in excessive mutual praise.
    • When organisations celebrate their anniversaries you can usually expect a dull circle jerk of self-congratulation, so the BBC played a blinder in getting Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse to do it for them. Patting yourself on the back looks better when you send yourself up.2022 October 27, Carol Midgley, “The Love Box in Your Living Room review — Harry and Paul toast the Beeb with a roast”, in The Times
  3. (Internet, slang, vulgar) An environment (especially an online community) in which people express or validate a narrow set of ideas and feelings.
    • You should join a circle jerk community if you like this so much.
  4. (derogatory, slang, vulgar) A situation in which a group of people engage in self-indulgent or self-gratifying behavior, especially by reinforcing each other's views or attitudes.
    • There is a long line of these types, some cleverer than others: Rod Liddle, Richard Littlejohn and Jeremy Clarkson, with Toby Young, James Delingpole and Martin Daubney on the subs’ bench. They present as dissenting voices, speaking truth to the elite. In reality, they just preach to people their...2020 January 20, Suzanne Moore, “I’d never heard of Laurence Fox until he started lecturing us about racism”, in The Guardian
  5. (slang, vulgar, drug user slang) A person who shares syringes when injecting drugs.

Verb

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

  1. (slang, vulgar) To participate in a circle jerk.

circle jerk meaning in Indonesian

circle jerk in Indonesian

online echo chamber
colingkar

Synonyms of circle jerk

Forms of circle jerk

Noun
pluralcircle jerks
alternative formcircle-jerk
alternative formcirclejerk
Verb
third-person singular presentcircle jerks
present participlecircle jerking
past participlecircle jerked
pastcircle jerked

Words formed from circle jerk

Questions about circle jerk

What does circle jerk mean?
Circle jerk means a group of people jerking off (“masturbating”) together (with or without interpersonal contact).
What is circle jerk in Indonesian?
Circle jerk in Indonesian is colingkar. See Circle jerk meaning in Indonesian.
What part of speech is circle jerk?
Circle jerk can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of circle jerk?
The plural of circle jerk is circle jerks.

Words near circle jerk in the dictionary

  1. circle group
  2. circle groups
  3. circle in
  4. circle inversion
  5. circle inversions
  6. circle jerk
  7. circle jerked
  8. circle jerker
  9. circle jerkers
  10. circle jerking
  11. circle jerks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: circle jerk (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-circle jerk.ogg.

Cite this entry: “circle jerk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/circle_jerk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.