Word of the Day

: December 7, 2015

jackleg

adjective JACK-leg

What It Means

1 a : characterized by unscrupulousness, dishonesty, or lack of professional standards

b : lacking skill or training : amateur

2 : designed as a temporary expedient : makeshift

jackleg in Context

Bill's only a jackleg carpenter, but he is sufficiently competent to handle less complex jobs.

"Local engineers knew even during construction that the canal upgrade was a bit of a jackleg job." — Christopher Cooper and Robert Block, Disaster, 2006

Did You Know?

Don't call someone jackleg unless you're prepared for that person to get angry with you. Throughout its 165-year-old history in English, jackleg has most often been used as a term of contempt and deprecation, particularly in reference to lawyers and preachers. Its form echoes that of the similar blackleg, an older term for a cheating gambler or a worker opposed to union policies. Etymologists know that blackleg appeared over fifty years before jackleg, but they don't have any verifiable theories about the origin of either term.