yellow jack
Americannoun
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Informal. quarantine flag.
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Pathology. yellow fever.
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any carangoid fish, especially a Caribbean food fish, Caranx bartholomaei.
noun
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pathol another name for yellow fever
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another name for quarantine flag
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any of certain large yellowish carangid food fishes, esp Caranx bartholomaei, of warm and tropical Atlantic waters
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of yellow jack
An Americanism dating back to 1830–40
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.
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
Dr. Carroll caught yellow jack from one of the Finlay mosquitoes.
From Time Magazine Archive
But all the time yellow jack was lurking in the jungles.
From Time Magazine Archive
But after performing an autopsy on the last man to die, he thought of yellow jack.
From Time Magazine Archive
He loathed the environment of that dim cell, with its slightly fœtid air, suggestive of yellow jack and dysentery.
From His Unknown Wife by Tracy, Louis
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.
