Jack the lad
Jack the lad noun: an irresponsible young man, seeking personal pleasure and gratification without any regard to responsibilities; a rogue.
Noun
Jack the lad (plural Jack the lads)
- An irresponsible young man, seeking personal pleasure and gratification without any regard to responsibilities; a rogue.
- You seem to think you’re a bit of a Jack the lad, don’t you?
Forms of Jack the lad
| plural | Jack the lads |
|---|
Origin of Jack the lad
Named after English thief, shoplifter, burglar, highwayman and gaol-breaker Jack Sheppard (1702–1724).
Questions about Jack the lad
- What does Jack the lad mean?
- Jack the lad means an irresponsible young man, seeking personal pleasure and gratification without any regard to responsibilities; a rogue.
- What part of speech is Jack the lad?
- Jack the lad is a noun.
- What is the plural of Jack the lad?
- The plural of Jack the lad is Jack the lads.
Words near Jack the lad in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Jack the lad (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-Jack the lad.ogg.
Cite this entry: “Jack the lad.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/jack_the_lad. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.