jerky
1 Americanadjective
-
jerkier,
comparative
-
jerkiest
superlative
-
characterized by jerks or sudden starts; spasmodic.
-
Slang. silly; foolish; stupid; ridiculous.
noun
adjective
noun
Usage
What does jerky mean? Jerky describes something that involves a lot of jerks, meaning sudden movements. Jerky also means meat that has been cut into strips and then dried or smoked. As an adjective, jerky describes something as having irregular, jarring movement, as in It was a long, jerky ride on the carriage thanks to the uncooperative horses. In this sense, the adverb jerkily means in a jerky movement, as in The wagon bounced jerkily over the rocky path. The noun form of this sense is jerkiness, as in The jerkiness of the airplane flight quickly made me feel sick. Jerky is also meat that has been sliced into strips that are then smoked or dried. The term jerked meat is also used to refer to this food. In this sense, jerky is used as both a singular and plural, as in I ate a piece of jerky from the bag of jerky Tom brought on the hike. Example: The jerky movements of the bull threw the cowboy to the ground.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of jerky1
First recorded in 1855–60; jerk 1 + -y 1
Origin of jerky2
1840–50, alteration of charqui
Explanation
Something that's jerky has a bumpy, lurching kind of rhythm, like a jerky off-road ride in a jeep. Another kind of jerky is dried meat. You could chew your beef jerky to calm yourself on that jerky ride. A jerky carnival ride starts and stops abruptly, and a jerky old movie might be choppy and shaky. When jerky is a noun, it's a dense, chewy type of dried meat. This second kind of jerky is an American word, adapted from the Spanish to originally be charqui, from an Incan root word, ch'arki, literally "dried flesh."
Vocabulary lists containing jerky
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Forged by Fire
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
To boost revenues she also sells pantry items such as granola, rice, soft drinks and beef jerky, all from independent producers.
From BBC ● Jun. 10, 2026
Designed to lower auto emissions by temporarily shutting off the engine while the brake is engaged, it also makes driving feel unnatural, jerky and unenjoyable, Donio and his fellow stop-start haters argue.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026
He got off to a jerky start, with an eagle at the first followed by a double bogey at the fourth.
From Barron's ● Feb. 20, 2026
When I first came to Park City, Utah, in 2010, I barely left the Holiday other than to sprint to the grocery store next door for beef jerky and sushi.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 31, 2026
Ms. Lena told us there should be some food from her last trip, and I find lunch meat, bread, beef jerky, ramen noodles, oatmeal, canned soup, and dried fruits.
From "The Manifestor Prophecy" by Angie Thomas
I’d never see it without having the faster refresh rate to compare it to, but motion looks jerkier and it gives the phone a less than polished feel.
From The Verge ● Jul. 21, 2022
These actions were rendered all the jerkier by the context in which they happened.
From Slate ● Aug. 2, 2021
Just when you’re lulled, for a moment, by the hum, you’re jarred by the vicious reality of the act, as the sound abruptly turns “grittier, jerkier, coarser.”
From Washington Post ● Nov. 2, 2020
“We clearly are a little jerkier than we would like,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2015
It was more vigorous and more staccato and jerkier.
From The Loudwater Mystery by Edgar Jepson
Being the human embodiment of the casual disrespect that mixed doubles has long received in the tennis community is perhaps the jerkiest thing of all.
From Slate ● Aug. 2, 2021
But it’s only a matter of time before the cash-grabbingest jerk in sports succeeds in pulling off the sports world’s jerkiest cash-grabbing maneuver.
From Slate ● Sep. 4, 2014
He who must justify every act by reflection is condemned to the jerkiest and most hesitant of moral lives.
From A Handbook of Ethical Theory by George Stuart Fullerton
That Eagle Child had ridden up to meet the Grizzly was in itself a fair promise for excitement, but also his Cayuse was one of the jerkiest brutes ever ridden by anybody.
From The Sa'-Zada Tales by William Alexander Fraser
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
