Word.ws English Dictionary

jackleg

jackleg adjective: amateur, untrained; incompetent.

Adjective

jackleg (not comparable)

  1. (US) Amateur, untrained; incompetent.
    • The next year I had a projecting kind of jack leg carpenter, from Hanover, living with me in the capacity of overseer […]1841, Letter to the editor, The Southern Planter, Volume I, No. 1, January 1841, p. 12
    • Grandma didn’t think chillun ought to see funerals, so de first one I ever seed, wuz when ma died two years atter de War wuz done over. A jackleg colored preacher talked, but he didn’t have sense ’nuff to preach a sho’ ’nuff sermon.1941, Martha Colquitt, Interview published in Slave Narratives, Library of Congress Project, Volume 4: Georgia Narratives, Part 1
  2. (US) Dishonest, unscrupulous.
    • The little nosy reporter with the hair was fair crazy to come, but McGinty gets a jackleg doctor to examine him an’ swear that he’s sufferin’ from spatulation o’ the medulla oblongata, housemaid’s knee, and the hives.1911, Peter B. Kyne, chapter 14, in Captain Scraggs or The Green-Pea Pirates, New York: Grosset & Dunlap
    • Villard’s great fortune should not be allowed to “dangle” in plain sight of “jack-leg lawyers,” while he, Parkins, awaited final results of the proceedings.1921, Sumner Charles Britton, chapter 4, in Dreamy Hollow, New York: World Syndicate Company, pages 49–50
  3. (US) Ineptly built or operated; makeshift.
    • The train is late […]. ¶ “Well, if I come to such a place as this I must expect a jackleg railroad […].”1889, John McGovern, chapter 12, in David Lockwin: The People’s Idol, Chicago: Donohue
    • “With the first good rain the entire jackleg contraption might collapse around my ears […]”1989, Jack Vance, chapter 7, in Madouc, Novato, California: Underwood-Miller, page 168

Noun

jackleg (plural jacklegs)

  1. A type of drill operated by means of compressed air.
  2. (US) An amateur; an untrained or incompetent person.
    • […] I, gentlemen and ladies, are a rale Scientificky! I ain’t none of your jack-legs.1846 July, Editor’s Table, The Knickerbocker, volume 28, number 1, page 87
    • Would the reader care to know something about the story which I pulled out? He has been told many a time how the born-and-trained novelist works; won’t he let me round and complete his knowledge by telling him how the jack-leg does it?1894, Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins, Hartford, Connecticut: American Publishing Company, page 311
  3. (US) A shyster or con artist; a gambler who cheats; a generally dishonest or reprehensible person.
    • “[…] we ain’t called on to believe every smooth-talking jackleg who wanders in here.”1985, Wesley Ellis, chapter 9, in Lone Star and the California Oil War, New York: Jove, page 121
    • “Guess what th’ low-down jackleg has done now.”1997, Jan Karon, chapter 7, in Out to Canaan, New York: Viking, page 113

jackleg meaning in Urdu

jackleg in Urdu

بےایمان, ناپختہ, شوقیہ

Examples of jackleg in a sentence

  • At the gas station on the corner, a jackleg work crew was attaching plywood to the windows.2010, Jabari Asim, “Day Work”, in A Taste of Honey, New York: Broadway Books, page 189:
  • When I went to the so-called authorities for help I ran into jackleg politicians, wheeler-dealers, henchmen, finaglers and wire-pullers.1988, Joyce Carol Thomas, chapter 1, in Journey, New York: Scholastic, page 27:
  • […] he went first to the barn […] and made a jackleg bed with hay and an old mule blanket.2012, Stephen King, The Wind Through the Keyhole, New York: Simon & Schuster, page 176:

Forms of jackleg

Adjective
alternative formjacklegged
Noun
pluraljacklegs

Origin of jackleg

From jack + leg. Compare blackleg (“a person who replaces striking workers; a cheater”) and such expressions as jack of all trades, every man jack.

Words formed from jackleg

Phrases with jackleg

Questions about jackleg

What does jackleg mean?
Jackleg means amateur, untrained; incompetent.
What is jackleg in Urdu?
Jackleg in Urdu is بےایمان, ناپختہ, شوقیہ. See Jackleg meaning in Urdu.
How do you use jackleg in a sentence?
At the gas station on the corner, a jackleg work crew was attaching plywood to the windows.
What part of speech is jackleg?
Jackleg can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near jackleg in the dictionary

  1. jackknife switches
  2. jackknifed
  3. jackknifes
  4. jackknifing
  5. jackknives
  6. jackleg
  7. jackleg fence
  8. jackleg fences
  9. jacklegged
  10. jacklegs
  11. Jackler

Source and license

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