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 thevehicle 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.
-
"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."
-
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.