Definitions

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

  • noun The letter j.
  • noun Any of various birds of several genera in the family Corvidae, usually brightly colored and often having a loud, harsh call.
  • noun An overly talkative person; a chatterbox.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The name of the letter j. It is rarely written out, the symbol j being used instead.
  • noun Any bird of the subfamily Garrulinæ; specifically, Garrulus glandarius, a common European bird, about 13 inches long, of a gray color tinged with reddish, varied with black, white, and blue, and having the head crested.
  • noun A loud, flashy woman.
  • noun In actors' slang, an amateur or a poor actor.
  • noun A general term of contempt applied to a stupid person: as, an audience at jays.
  • noun In angling, a variety of artificial fly dressed with blue jay feathers.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) Any one of the numerous species of birds belonging to Garrulus, Cyanocitta, and allied genera of the family Corvidae. They are allied to the crows, but are smaller, more graceful in form, often handsomely colored, and usually have a crest.
  • noun (Zoöl.) any one several species of Asiatic singing birds, of the genera Garrulax, Grammatoptila, and related genera of the family Crateropodidæ.

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

  • noun The name of the Latin script letter J/j.
  • noun Any one of the numerous species of birds belonging to several genera within the family Corvidae, including Garrulus, Cyanocitta, allied to the crows, but smaller, more graceful in form, often handsomely colored, usually having a crest, and often noisy.
  • noun Other birds of similar appearance and behavior.
  • noun archaic A dull or ignorant person. It survives today in the term jaywalking.
  • noun slang A marijuana cigarette; a joint.

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

  • noun United States diplomat and jurist who negotiated peace treaties with Britain and served as the first chief justice of the United States Supreme Court (1745-1829)
  • noun crested largely blue bird

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English jai, from Old French, from Late Latin gāius, gāia, perhaps from Latin Gāius, personal name.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Respelling of the letter jy, by analogy with the following letter kay.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English jay, from Old French jai ("jay"; Modern French geai), from Old French jai ("gay, merry"), so named due to its plumage, from Old Frankish *gāhi (“quick, impetuous”), from Proto-Germanic *ganhuz, *ganhwaz (“sudden”), cognate with Dutch gaai ("jay"). More at gay.

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