jitney
Americannoun
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a small bus or car following a regular route along which it picks up and discharges passengers, originally charging each passenger five cents.
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Older Slang. a nickel; five-cent piece.
verb (used with or without object)
noun
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a small bus that carries passengers for a low price, originally five cents
-
slang a nickel; five cents
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of jitney
1900–05, of obscure origin; French jeton jetton is a phonetically implausible source
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:
Wave, a public jitney, runs routes all over the island and is free through the end of 2026.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026
“When I was younger and couldn’t afford an actual vacation, I would bring my toddler on an adventure I called ‘the bus to the boat to the jitney to the beach,’ ” Coven said.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 18, 2023
Some are braving the trains; others the jitney.
From New York Times ● Jul. 24, 2020
But Wilson is less interested in mining any potential melodrama than he is in exploring the contrasting worldviews between the aptly named Youngblood and the older jitney drivers, who challenge, rebuke and encourage him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 2019
The jitney takes about twenty minutes to drop me off at Mr. Reilly’s work.
From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson
I couldn’t agree more with Brian Broome’s Nov. 9 Tuesday Opinion column, “So long, jitneys — and farewell to our connective tissue.”
From Washington Post ● Nov. 12, 2021
Those agents, who drive pick-up trucks, are different than the parking enforcement agents that ticket vehicles for meter violations and other offenses, who drive small vehicles sometimes called jitneys.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 19, 2018
Simultaneously serving as their kids’ drill masters, coaches, instructors, one-on-one opponents, hype men, financiers, advisers, protectors, bouncers, dietitians, jitneys, critics, vision boards, sponsors, and parents.
From Slate ● May 5, 2017
In other countries, mini-buses that occupy a gray world between public and private transportation go by many names: jitneys, matatus, "informal" transit.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 25, 2015
Established members of the congregation, in hired hacks, in jitneys, in rented and privately owned equipages, and also afoot came next.
From Sundry Accounts by Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
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.
