yellow jack

American  

noun

• yellow jack,
  plural
• yellow jacks
  plural

1. Informal. quarantine flag.

2. Pathology. yellow fever.

3. any carangoid fish, especially a Caribbean food fish, Caranx bartholomaei.

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yellow jack British  

noun

1. pathol another name for yellow fever

2. another name for quarantine flag

3. any of certain large yellowish carangid food fishes, esp Caranx bartholomaei, of warm and tropical Atlantic waters

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• yellow jack
  plural
• yellow jacks
  plural

Etymology

Origin of yellow jack

An Americanism dating back to 1830–40

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

yellow jack

But after performing an autopsy on the last man to die, he thought of yellow jack.

From Time Magazine Archive

Dr. Carroll caught yellow jack from one of the Finlay mosquitoes.

From Time Magazine Archive

When only the two soldiers who were bitten by mosquitoes contracted yellow jack, it amounted to Science's first important victory over yellow fever, the beginning of the final extermination of that plague.

From Time Magazine Archive

But all the time yellow jack was lurking in the jungles.

From Time Magazine Archive

Then the dreaded "yellow jack" made its appearance amongst us, and forty men lay sick to death on the ballast, of whom, I grieve to relate, more than half died.

From A Lad of Grit A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea in Restoration Times by Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis)