jackleg

English

Alternative forms

• jacklegged (adjective)

Etymology

From jack +‎ leg, compare blackleg (a person who replaces striking workers; a cheater) and such expressions as jack of all trades, every man jack.

Adjective

jackleg (not comparable)

1. (US) Amateur, untrained; incompetent.
   • 1841, Letter to the editor, The Southern Planter, Volume I, No. 1, January 1841, p. 12,^[1]

     The next year I had a projecting kind of jack leg carpenter, from Hanover, living with me in the capacity of overseer […]

   • 1941, Martha Colquitt, Interview published in Slave Narratives, Library of Congress Project, Volume 4: Georgia Narratives, Part 1,^[2]

     Grandma didn’t think chillun ought to see funerals, so de first one I ever seed, wuz when ma died two years atter de War wuz done over. A jackleg colored preacher talked, but he didn’t have sense ’nuff to preach a sho’ ’nuff sermon.

   • 1957, Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, Wolfbane, Chapter 11, in Galaxy Science Fiction,^[3]

     He was a doer, not a thinker; his skills were the skills of an artisan, a tinkerer, a jackleg mechanic.

   • 2010, Jabari Asim, “Day Work”, in A Taste of Honey‎^[4], New York: Broadway Books, page 189:

     At the gas station on the corner, a jackleg work crew was attaching plywood to the windows.

2. (US) Dishonest, unscrupulous.
   • 1911, Peter B. Kyne, chapter 14, in Captain Scraggs or The Green-Pea Pirates‎^[5], New York: Grosset & Dunlap:

     The little nosy reporter with the hair was fair crazy to come, but McGinty gets a jackleg doctor to examine him an’ swear that he’s sufferin’ from spatulation o’ the medulla oblongata, housemaid’s knee, and the hives.

   • 1921, Sumner Charles Britton, chapter 4, in Dreamy Hollow‎^[6], New York: World Syndicate Company, pages 49–50:

     Villard’s great fortune should not be allowed to “dangle” in plain sight of “jack-leg lawyers,” while he, Parkins, awaited final results of the proceedings.

   • 1988, Joyce Carol Thomas, chapter 1, in Journey‎^[7], New York: Scholastic, page 27:

     When I went to the so-called authorities for help I ran into jackleg politicians, wheeler-dealers, henchmen, finaglers and wire-pullers.

3. (US) Ineptly built or operated; makeshift.
   • 1889, John McGovern, chapter 12, in David Lockwin: The People’s Idol‎^[8], Chicago: Donohue:

     The train is late […] . ¶ “Well, if I come to such a place as this I must expect a jackleg railroad […] .”

   • 1989, Jack Vance, chapter 7, in Madouc‎^[9], Novato, California: Underwood-Miller, page 168:

     “With the first good rain the entire jackleg contraption might collapse around my ears […] ”

   • 2005, William Hoffman, Lies, Montgomery, Alabama: River City Publishing, Chapter 23, p. 226,^[10]

     Driving the secondhand Chevy pickup, he visits not only major car dealerships but also every jackleg garage he happens upon in dusty sun-blasted towns of the Deep South.

   • 2012, Stephen King, The Wind Through the Keyhole, New York: Simon & Schuster, page 176:

     […] he went first to the barn […] and made a jackleg bed with hay and an old mule blanket.

Noun

jackleg (plural jacklegs)

1. A type of drill operated by means of compressed air.
2. (US) An amateur; an untrained or incompetent person.
   • 1846 July, Editor’s Table, The Knickerbocker‎^[11], volume 28, number 1, page 87:

     […] I, gentlemen and ladies, are a rale Scientificky! I ain’t none of your jack-legs.

   • 1894, Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins‎^[12], Hartford, Connecticut: American Publishing Company, page 311:

     Would the reader care to know something about the story which I pulled out? He has been told many a time how the born-and-trained novelist works; won’t he let me round and complete his knowledge by telling him how the jack-leg does it?

   • 1955, Flannery O’Connor, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories‎^[13], New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, published 1977, page 58:

     “Lady,” he said, jerking his short arm up as if he could point with it to her house and yard and pump, “there ain’t a broken thing on this plantation that I couldn’t fix for you, one-arm jackleg or not […] .”

   • 1999, David Horsley, Into the Wind, Houston, Texas: Winedale Publishing, “Tops for Trees,” p. 180,^[14]

     If it were up to me, we’d have a city ordinance against incompetent pruning of trees. You need a permit to unclog a sewer or fix a light switch, but any jackleg with a chainsaw can climb up a ladder and undo in five minutes what Mother Nature took decades to accomplish.

3. (US) A shyster or con artist; a gambler who cheats; a generally dishonest or reprehensible person.
   • 1985, Wesley Ellis, chapter 9, in Lone Star and the California Oil War‎^[15], New York: Jove, page 121:

     “ […] we ain’t called on to believe every smooth-talking jackleg who wanders in here.”

   • 1997, Jan Karon, chapter 7, in Out to Canaan‎^[16], New York: Viking, page 113:

     “Guess what th’ low-down jackleg has done now.”

Derived terms

• jackleg fence

Usage notes

Although the term most often carries negative connotations (inept, dishonest), it may also have positive ones (self-taught expert, hands-on learner). Occasionally it is used as a generic pejorative intensifier, equivalent to damn, out-and-out, etc., e.g. a jackleg crook, a jackleg bastard.