jitney
Americannoun
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jitneys
plural
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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
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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
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 came and she didn’t have long to wait; the hotel was a new one, surprisingly close by.
From Slate ● Mar. 26, 2018
The jitney, which is what rich people call the shuttle, goes up at seven, and I can drop the pieces off then.
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
A few of the more pretentious ones pass in their own cars, or in jitneys, or upon busses.
From Slate ● Oct. 23, 2019
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
Similar services, sometimes called jitneys, have operated in San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Houston.
From Washington Post
He caught one of the swarm of jitneys that overran the camp each evening, and in half an hour was set down in front of the Stonewall Hotel on the hot and drowsy main street.
From The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott (Francis Scott) Fitzgerald
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
