Word.ws English Dictionary

slackjawed

slackjawed is the alternative form of slack-jawed.

Meaning of slack-jawed

Adjective

slack-jawed (comparative more slack-jawed, superlative most slack-jawed)

  1. With the mouth in an open position and the jaw hanging loosely, especially as indicating bewilderment or astonishment.
    • For one frightful moment there was no sound; even the men's breathing was hushed, and they sat slack-jawed, stunned, half-minded to believe this some hideous, incredible jest.1911, Rex Ellingwood Beach, chapter 26, in The Ne'er-Do-Well
  2. (broadly) Unsophisticated or unthinking; dimwitted in appearance.
    • She brought to the stage the barefoot, slack-jawed frontiersmen found on postcards in every convenience store and tourist trap in the Ozarks.2002, Brooks Blevins, Hill Folks: A History of Arkansas Ozarkers and their Image, →ISBN, page 262
    Synonyms:
    dopey, stupid, stupefied
  3. (dated) Overly talkative; indiscreet.
    • As a matter of fact, it was by trying to lean on it that Spencer Clay got hold of the facts of the case; and when young Clay got hold of anything, Marois Bay at large had it hot and fresh a few hours later; for Spencer was one of those slack-jawed youths who are constitutionally incapable of...1917, P. G. Wodehouse, “Wilton's Holiday”, in The Man with Two Left Feet and Other Stories
    Synonyms:
    big-mouthed

Forms of slackjawed

comparativemore slackjawed
superlativemost slackjawed

Questions about slackjawed

What is slackjawed the alternative form of?
Slackjawed is the alternative form of slack-jawed.

Words near slackjawed in the dictionary

  1. slackhandedness
  2. slacking
  3. slacking off
  4. slacking up
  5. slackish
  6. slackjawed
  7. slackline
  8. slacklined
  9. slackliner
  10. slackliners
  11. slacklines

Source and license

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