Word.ws English Dictionary

clean and jerk

clean and jerk noun: the act of lifting the barbell from the floor to a resting position across the front of the shoulders (the clean phase), pausing, and thrusting the barbell over the head to a stationary position in one movement (the jerk phase). The normal technique for both parts of this act involves propelling the barbell upwards, quickly lowering the torso, and then straightening the legs.

Noun

clean and jerk (plural clean and jerks)

  1. The act of lifting the barbell from the floor to a resting position across the front of the shoulders (the clean phase), pausing, and thrusting the barbell over the head to a stationary position in one movement (the jerk phase). The normal technique for both parts of this act involves propelling the barbell upwards, quickly lowering the torso, and then straightening the legs.

Verb

clean and jerk (third-person singular simple present cleans and jerks or clean and jerks, present participle cleaning and jerking or clean and jerking, simple past and past participle cleaned and jerked or clean and jerked)

  1. To lift and manipulate a weight in this fashion.

Forms of clean and jerk

Noun
pluralclean and jerks
alternative formclean-and-jerk
Verb
third-person singular presentcleans and jerks
third-person singular presentclean and jerks
present participlecleaning and jerking
present participleclean and jerking
past participlecleaned and jerked
pastcleaned and jerked
past participleclean and jerked
pastclean and jerked

Questions about clean and jerk

What does clean and jerk mean?
Clean and jerk means the act of lifting the barbell from the floor to a resting position across the front of the shoulders (the clean phase), pausing, and thrusting the barbell over the head to a stationary position in one movement (the jerk phase). The normal technique for both parts of this act involves propelling the barbell upwards, quickly lowering the torso, and then straightening the legs.
What part of speech is clean and jerk?
Clean and jerk can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of clean and jerk?
The plural of clean and jerk is clean and jerks.

Words near clean and jerk in the dictionary

  1. cleam
  2. cleamed
  3. cleaming
  4. cleams
  5. clean
  6. clean and jerk
  7. clean and jerked
  8. clean and jerking
  9. clean and jerks
  10. clean as a bean
  11. clean as a hound's tooth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clean and 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.

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