Word.ws English Dictionary

Jack at a pinch

Jack at a pinch proper noun: a person whose assistance is sought only in an emergency.

Proper noun

Jack at a pinch

  1. (archaic, informal) A person whose assistance is sought only in an emergency.
    • "Nay, not I; it is a pretty thing to expect me to wash them; you may take them back again, and say, as Sally had them before, she may wash them now, for me; I am not going to be 'Jack at a pinch,' I can tell you."1839, The Cottager's Monthly Visitor, volume 19, page 270

Questions about Jack at a pinch

What does Jack at a pinch mean?
Jack at a pinch means a person whose assistance is sought only in an emergency.
What part of speech is Jack at a pinch?
Jack at a pinch is a proper noun.

Words near Jack at a pinch in the dictionary

  1. jack arch
  2. jack arches
  3. jack around
  4. Jack ashore
  5. Jack ashores
  6. Jack at a pinch
  7. jack bean
  8. jack beans
  9. Jack Benny
  10. jack block
  11. jack blocks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Jack at a pinch (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:

Cite this entry: “Jack at a pinch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/jack_at_a_pinch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.