Word.ws English Dictionary

jack-knifing

jack-knifing is the present participle and gerund 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-knifing

What is jack-knifing the present participle and gerund of?
Jack-knifing is the present participle and gerund of jack-knife.

Words near jack-knifing in the dictionary

  1. jack-knife
  2. jack-knife barber
  3. jack-knife barbers
  4. jack-knifed
  5. jack-knifes
  6. jack-knifing
  7. jack-knives
  8. jack-o'-lantern
  9. jack-o'-lanterns
  10. jack-o-lantern
  11. jack-o-lanterns

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: jack-knifing (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-knifing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/jack-knifing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.