jack1

noun

• 1a device for lifting heavy objects, especially one for raising the axle of a motor vehicle off the ground so that a wheel can be changed or the underside inspected.

• 2a playing card bearing a representation of a soldier, page, or knave, normally ranking next below a queen.

• 3 (also jack socket) a socket with two or more pairs of terminals designed to receive a jack plug.

• 4a small white ball in bowls, at which the players aim.

• 5 (jacks) a game played by tossing and catching small round pebbles or star-shaped pieces of metal or plastic.
• (also jackstone) a pebble or piece of metal or plastic used in the game of jacks.

• 6 (Jack) informal used to typify an ordinary man:he had that world-weary look of the working Jack who’d seen everything
• chiefly US informal used as a form of address to a man whose name is not known.
• North American informal a lumberjack.
• a detective or police officer.
• archaic a steeplejack.
• the figure of a man striking the bell on a clock.

• 7a small version of a national flag flown at the bow of a vessel in harbour to indicate its nationality.

• 8 [mass noun] North American informal dated money.

• 9a device for turning a spit.

• 10a part of the mechanism in a spinet or harpsichord that connects a key to its corresponding string and causes the string to be plucked when the key is pressed down.

• 11a marine fish that is typically laterally compressed with a row of large spiky scales along each side, important in many places as food or game fish. Also called pompano, scad.

  [originally a West Indian term]

  • Family Carangidae (the jack family): many genera and numerous species. The jack family also includes the horse mackerel, pilotfish, kingfishes, and trevallies

• 12the male of various animals, especially a merlin or (US) an ass.

• 13used in names of animals that are smaller than similar kinds, e.g. jack snipe.

• 14US informalshort for jack shit.