Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Marked by irregular projections and indentations on the edge or surface.
  • adjective Having a rough or harsh quality.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Having notches or teeth, or ragged edges; cleft; divided; laciniate: as, jagged leaves.
  • Cut into jags, as sleeves and other parts of a garment; cut at the edge with leaf-like serrations: a fashion of garments common in the early part of the fifteenth century. See dag
  • In heraldry, shown with broken and irregular outlines, as if torn from something else: said of any bearing.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Having jags; having rough, sharp notches, protuberances, or teeth; cleft; laciniate; divided.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Unevenly cut; having the texture of something so cut.
  • adjective Having a rough quality.
  • adjective computing Of an array, having a different cardinality in each dimension, such that a representation on paper would appear uneven.
  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of jag.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective having a sharply uneven surface or outline
  • adjective having an irregularly notched or toothed margin as though gnawed

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Her breasts brushed his chest as he pressed closer, her breath coming in jagged pants.

    Archive 2010-02-01 Nalini Singh 2010

  • Her breasts brushed his chest as he pressed closer, her breath coming in jagged pants.

    Whisper of Sin Excerpt Nalini Singh 2010

  • Then I might try things with sentence length and shape, the look of the words on the page, so Ferro tends to be written in short, jagged sentences, often with single line paragraphs following longer paragraphs that serve as punchlines of a sort.

    Joe Abercrombie – Interview 2009

  • I've not tried it with dark chocolate - let me know if you do ... if you are feeling fancy you can make some caramel and arrange it in jagged edges on the top ...

    white chocolate mousse Mrs Frog 2006

  • I've not tried it with dark chocolate - let me know if you do ... if you are feeling fancy you can make some caramel and arrange it in jagged edges on the top ...

    Archive 2006-09-01 Mrs Frog 2006

  • It had been the stripes tattooed on the sides of his face, running in jagged lines from the outer corner of each eye to ear, heralding his former rank, forever marking him.

    Orbit Books Free Sample SciFi Fantasy Book: The Future Is Now 30 | SciFi UK Review 2005

  • The lightning seemed to run slantwise along the clouds in jagged streams, and to end each time with a plunge straight down into the earth.

    Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys 1873

  • Some facial scrubs contain jagged grains that can tear and rip the top layer of skin and, well, you don’t need to be a dermatologist to know that’s no good!

    Lynecia’s Beauty Pick: Juice Beauty Green Apple Peel « 2010

  • The male suspect, whose teeth were described as jagged and yellow, knocked the boy to the ground, kicked him and stole his earphones, said Winnipeg police spokeswoman Const.

    Winnipeg Sun 2010

  • They hung out with Andy Warhol and played his "Exploding Plastic Inevitable" multimedia assault, and then they basically invented the idea of jagged, noisy rock as an underground art form.

    Pitchfork: Latest News 2009

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