Definitions

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

  • noun A compact folding knife.
  • noun The front-dive pike, in which the body folds and unfolds.
  • noun colloquial A semi-trailer truck accident in which the vehicle mimics the closing of a jack-knife.
  • noun statistics Alternative spelling of jackknife.
  • verb To fold in the middle, as a jackknife does.
  • verb colloquial To cause a semi-trailer truck to fold like a jackknife in a traffic accident.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word jack-knife.

Examples

  • A centauroid body atop seven sharp-jointed legs, with a pair of jack-knife arms held curled and ready.

    Archive 2010-01-01 Blue Tyson 2010

  • Wriggling close to the hawser, he opened his jack-knife and went to work.

    The Lost Poacher 2010

  • Quirk: "Keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece."

    Casting the Detectives: Crime Fiction's Biggest Movie Stars Monika Anderson 2012

  • Low and behold I find an old style camping jack-knife from my Boy Scout days with a ring on it collecting dust in my sock drawer.

    My Favorite Flashlight 2008

  • "Bub" Russell, the cabin boy, is taken aboard the Russian cruiser and in the darkness lays down near the hawser and works on it with a jack-knife.

    “The way of a man with a maid may be too wonderful to know. . .” 2008

  •  When he is gone she has dreams of his plane crashing, of an unavoidable jack-knife in the fog of Highway 101, of Ted trying to call her with bloody hands, his legs already mangled by a head on collision.

    A Wedding 2009

  • "Oh the shark has pretty teeth dear, And he shows them pearly white - Just a jack-knife has Macheath dear - And he keeps it out of sight."

    Just Add 89,700 Words 2007

  • It would have been my duty to have furnished a jack-knife to the third, man or to the second, and to have sold it to him and actually profited myself.

    Acres of Diamonds 2008

  • That meant being unable to beg off attending, by claiming I was perfecting my jack-knife at the city pool.

    Kate Clinton: Our State of Affairs is a Great State Fair 2008

  • Hey, if Spitzer's wife wants to shoot him, or perform a bit of surgery with a rusty jack-knife and no anesthetic, fine by me.

    QOTD jhetley 2008

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.