jury-rig

verb

ju·​ry-rig ˈju̇r-ē-ˌrig How to pronounce jury-rig (audio)
-ˈrig,
ˈjər-
jury-rigged; jury-rigging; jury-rigs

transitive verb

: to erect, construct, or arrange in a makeshift fashion

Examples of jury-rig in a Sentence

we jury-rigged shelves out of cartons and crates until we could afford real furniture
Recent Examples on the Web After arriving, Waters pointed a flashlight at a fuse box to jury-rig the generator’s connection. Chris Kenning, USA TODAY, 30 Sep. 2024 But Ukraine’s military engineers have already shown surprising skill in jury-rigging older weapons systems with more modern firepower. Lara Jakes, New York Times, 2 Apr. 2024 Amid those punishing strikes, Ukraine scrambled to stay ahead of mounting damage, with repair crews working around the clock and under fire, desperately jury-rigging old equipment and rationing precious power. Laura King, Los Angeles Times, 3 Oct. 2023 Despite the extreme heat, butchers laid out raw meat on the hoods of their cars, whacking away flies with branches or fly swatters jury-rigged with plastic bags. Valerie Hopkins Emile Ducke, New York Times, 11 Aug. 2023 Observers got a sneak peek of this tactic in Nagorno-Karabakh, where Azerbaijan recently used 1940s-era An-2 biplanes that were jury-rigged to operate remotely. Jason Lyall, Foreign Affairs, 16 Dec. 2020 The big gun is jury-rigged on the back of a flatbed truck. James Levinson, Fox News, 13 Apr. 2023 Taylor plays Inez, a young Harlem fast talker who decides to jury-rig a family by any means necessary. Helena Andrews-Dyer, Washington Post, 31 Mar. 2023 This wasn’t new—the Islamic State had also used drones to drop grenades in Iraq—but Ukraine started doing this on a professional, unprecedented scale, says Zwijnenburg, moving from jury-rigging devices to drop hand grenades to 3D-printing parts that turn ordinary commercial drones into weapons. WIRED, 24 Feb. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'jury-rig.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

jury entry 3

First Known Use

1788, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of jury-rig was in 1788

Dictionary Entries Near jury-rig

Cite this Entry

“Jury-rig.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jury-rig. Accessed 31 Oct. 2024.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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