jerk (n.)

1935, “tedious and ineffectual person,” Amer.Eng. carnival slang, perhaps from jerkwater town (1878), where a steam locomotive crew had to take on boiler water from a trough or a creek because there was no water tank. This led 1890s to an adj. use of jerk as “inferior, insignificant.” Probably also infl. by verb jerk off, slang for “perform male masturbation” (first recorded 1916). Jerk off (n.) as an emphatic form of jerk (n.) first attested 1968.

Also:

jerky (n.)

1850, Amer.Eng., from Amer.Sp. charqui “jerked meat,” from Quechua ch’arki “dried flesh.” The verb jerk “to cure meat by cutting into long thin slices and drying in the sun” is recorded from 1707.

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

13 replies on “Etymology of the Day: Jerk”

  3. I’ve been calling myself a “tedious and ineffectual” person alot lately. Now I know it’s just not strong enough to apply to my own special brand of stupidity.

  4. It actually precedes that, if you go back to the Norwegian. People dried fish and made pemmican back when Canada’s and America’s Iroquois brought certain words into our vocabulary.

  5. But I’m pretty sure (remembering my anthro course) that it entered US vocab mostly through the Caribbean influence on our Louisiana possessions.

  6. What the fuck are you talking about, Will? Try not using the word “actually” for a change. WHAT “goes back to the Norwegian”? The word “jerk”? No, it doesn’t. Iroquois? You’re wrong. READ THE FUCKING POST. Quechua, not Iroquois.

    Anthro course, my ass.

  7. Wow, Quecha for “dried flesh.”

    I’ll bet that goes back to the Mayans….maybe the Aztecs.

    YUM, think about that when you eat jerk chicken next.

  8. The etymology of jerk spice also, it seems, comes from the Quechua:

    “The Quechua word charqui (dried meat) gave the name to both the Caribbean term jerk and the North American term jerky. Jamaican ‘jerk’ blends well the cultural origins and traditional cooking methods of many indigenous peoples native to the Caribbean, many of which developed smoking methods like jerk for easily transported food and long term sustenance.”

  9. @7, Quechua is Andean, thus Inca, not Aztec or Maya, which were in what is now Mexico. Though Quechua is older than the Incas. The Spanish got charqui from the Incas; I dunno if it got to the Caribbean via the Spanish or by pre-Columbian trade.

  12. It seems to me that ‘jerk’ has shifted slightly from ‘tedious and ineffectual person’ (though it still means that too) to ‘a petty or cruel person’. The emphasis is now more on petty cruelty rather than ineffectualness.

    Any insights on this meaning?

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