Word.ws English Dictionary

jack-knifed

jack-knifed is the simple past and past participle of jack-knife.

Meaning of jack-knife

Verb

jack-knife (third-person singular simple present jack-knifes, present participle jack-knifing, simple past and past participle jack-knifed)

  1. To fold in the middle, as a jackknife does.
    • The cat jackknifed in the air and landed gracefully on its feet.
  2. (colloquial) To cause a semi-trailer truck to fold like a jackknife in a traffic accident.
    • Before I knew what was happening, I'd jack-knifed the truck.

See all 7 meanings of jack-knife

Questions about jack-knifed

What is jack-knifed the simple past and past participle of?
Jack-knifed is the simple past and past participle of jack-knife.

Words near jack-knifed in the dictionary

  1. Jack-jump-up-and-kiss-me
  2. Jack-jump-up-and-kiss-mes
  3. jack-knife
  4. jack-knife barber
  5. jack-knife barbers
  6. jack-knifed
  7. jack-knifes
  8. jack-knifing
  9. jack-knives
  10. jack-o'-lantern
  11. jack-o'-lanterns

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: jack-knifed (page history and authors); jack-knife (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: “jack-knifed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/jack-knifed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.