Word.ws English Dictionary

jerk

UK/ˈd͡ʒɜːk//ˈd͡ʒɝk/

jerk noun: a sudden, often uncontrolled movement, especially of the human body. Also the ellipsis of soda jerk.

Noun (1)

jerk (plural jerks)

  1. A sudden, often uncontrolled movement, especially of the human body.
    • The black cloth bestrewn with white beads blew up from time to time, laying bare the coffin. The tired bearers walked more slowly, and it advanced with constant jerks, like a boat that pitches with every wave.1856, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
    • A barrel-organ in the street suddenly sprang with a jerk into a jovial tune.1908, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, Bristol: J[ames] W[illiams] Arrowsmith, […]; London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company, →OCLC, page 114
  2. A quick pull on something.
    • When I yell "OK," give the mooring line a good jerk!
    Synonyms:
    yank, tug
  3. (US, derogatory, slang) A person with unlikable or obnoxious qualities and behavior, typically mean, immoral, self-centered, or disagreeable.
    • I finally fired him, because he was being a real jerk to his customers, even to some of the staff.
    • You really are a jerk sometimes.
    Synonyms:
    asshole, arsehole
  4. (US, derogatory, slang) A stupid person; an idiot or fool.
  5. A lift in which the weight is taken with a quick motion from shoulder height to a position above the head with arms fully extended and held there for a brief time.
  6. (slang) Masturbation.
    1. (Internet, slang) An act of satirizing behavior that is, to an extent, common in a community, especially in circlejerk subreddits.
      • Jerk of the Year contender
  7. (preceded by definite article) A dance, popular in Western culture in the 1960s, in which the head and upper body is thrown forwards regularly to the beat of the music.
    • Girls, hey, what's that you're doing
      Girl, girl, what's that you're doing
      You got to show me the steps to it
      Somehow, gonna learn how to do it
      Doing the jerk
      Hey, do the jerk
      Girl, come on and work
      Hey, do the jerk.1964, “The Jerk”, Don Julian (lyrics), performed by The Larks
  8. The rate of change in acceleration with respect to time.
    Synonyms:
    jolt, surge, lurch

Verb (1)

jerk (third-person singular simple present jerks, present participle jerking, simple past and past participle jerked)

  1. (intransitive) To make a sudden uncontrolled movement.
    • York came to me first, whilst the groom stood at Ginger's head. He drew my head back and fixed the rein so tight that it was almost intolerable; then he went to Ginger, who was impatiently jerking her head up and down against the bit, as was her way now.[1877], Anna Sewell, “A Strike for Liberty”, in Black Beauty: […], London: Jarrold and Sons, […], →OCLC, part II, page 106
  2. (transitive) To give a quick, often unpleasant tug or shake.
  3. (US, slang, vulgar) To masturbate.
    1. (Internet, US, slang, vulgar) To satirize behavior that is, to an extent, common in a community, especially in circlejerk subreddits.
      • This is jerking’s 9/11
  4. (obsolete) To beat, to hit.
  5. (obsolete) To throw with a quick and suddenly arrested motion of the hand.
    • to jerk a stone
    Synonyms:
    fling, shy, bung, cast, chuck, chunk, cook, dash, dump, feck
  6. (transitive, usually) To lift using a jerk.
  7. (obsolete) To flout with contempt.

Noun (2)

jerk (uncountable)

  1. (Caribbean, Jamaica) A rich, spicy Jamaican marinade.
    • Sunshine ranks high in the island's greates burger debate, while the chicken egg rolls with mango chutney and jerk mayo and fabulous fish tacos elevate pub grub to an art.2016, Fodor's Essential Caribbean, Fodor's Travel, →ISBN
  2. (Caribbean, Jamaica) Meat (or sometimes vegetables) cured by jerking, in which it is coated in spices and slow-cooked over a fire or grill traditionally composed of green pimento wood positioned over burning coals; charqui.
    • Jerk chicken is a local favorite.

Verb (2)

jerk (third-person singular simple present jerks, present participle jerking, simple past and past participle jerked)

  1. To cure (meat) by cutting it into strips and drying it, originally in the sun.
    • Snow stalled him in the timber; his food was all but gone when he managed to kill an antelope and jerk a supply of venison.1954, Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West, Houghton Mifflin, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 37
    • The Lemakot in the north strangled widows and threw them into the cremation pyres of their dead husbands. If they defeated potential invaders the New Irish hanged the vanquished from banyan trees, flensed their windpipes, removed their heads, left their intestines to jerk in the sun.2011, Dominic Smith, Bright and Distant Shores, page 106
    Synonyms:
    jerky

Also used as

jerk is also the ellipsis of soda jerk.

jerk meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Odia and Nepali

jerk in Hindi

unlikable person
चांडाल cāṇḍāl
sudden, uncontrolled movement
झटका jhaṭkā
intransitive: to make a sudden uncontrolled movement
झटकना jhaṭaknā

jerk in Urdu

unlikable person
چنڈال

jerk in Odia

ଜର୍କ

jerk in Nepali

जर्क, टु जर्क
More languagesFewer languages
jerk in Tagalog
gago, kupal, lukbain
jerk in Arabic
هَزَّة hazza, رَعَشَة raʕaša, يرتعش, يهز
jerk in Malay
sentakan
jerk in Indonesian
bajingan, bangsat, brengsek, sontoloyo

Examples of jerk in a sentence

  • He is such a jerk; he gave me a sloppy wet willy.
  • Nathan ordered an orange fizz from the soda jerk at the counter.
  • Someone should carjack that pompous jerk and teach him a lesson!

All 40 example sentences with jerk

Synonyms of jerk

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of jerk

Forms of jerk

Noun
pluraljerks
alternative formyark
Verb
third-person singular presentjerks
present participlejerking
past participlejerked
pastjerked

Past tense of jerk: jerked

Plural of jerk: jerks

Origin of jerk

Probably from Middle English yerk (“sudden motion”) and Middle English yerkid (“tightly pulled”), from Old English ġearc (“ready, active, quick”) and Old English ġearcian (“to prepare, make ready, procure, furnish, supply”). Cognate with Scots yerk (“to jerk”). Related also to English yare (“ready”).

Denominal verb of jerky, itself borrowed from Spanish charqui, from Quechua ch'arki.

Words formed from jerk

Phrases with jerk

Words that rhyme with jerk

35 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about jerk

What does jerk mean?
Jerk means a sudden, often uncontrolled movement, especially of the human body.
What is jerk in Hindi?
Jerk in Hindi is चांडाल (cāṇḍāl), झटका (jhaṭkā), झटकना (jhaṭaknā). See Jerk meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is jerk?
Jerk can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce jerk?
Jerk is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒɜːk/ (UK).
What is the plural of jerk?
The plural of jerk is jerks.

Words near jerk in the dictionary

  1. Jerimoth
  2. jering bean
  3. jering beans
  4. Jerislav
  5. Jerjen
  6. jerk
  7. jerk around
  8. jerk ass
  9. jerk asses
  10. jerk it
  11. jerk off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: jerk (page history and authors); jerk (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); jerk (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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-us-jerk.ogg.

Cite this entry: “jerk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/jerk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.