jig
English
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Pronunciation
Etymology 1
An assimilated form of earlier gig, from Middle English gigge, from Old French gige, gigue (“a fiddle, kind of dance”), from Frankish *gīge (“dance, fiddle”), from Proto-Germanic *gīganą (“to move, wish, desire”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeyǵʰ-, *gʰeygʰ- (“to yawn, gape, long for, desire”). Cognate with Middle Dutch ghighe (“fiddle”), German Geige (“fiddle, violin”), Danish gige (“fiddle”), Icelandic gígja (“fiddle”). More at gig, geg.
Noun
jig (plural jigs)
- (music) A light, brisk musical movement; a gigue.
- (traditional Irish music and dance) A lively dance in 6/8 (double jig), 9/8 (slip jig) or 12/8 (single jig) time; a tune suitable for such a dance. By extension, a lively traditional tune in any of these time signatures. Unqualified, the term is usually taken to refer to a double (6/8) jig.
- They danced a jig.
- 2012 November 15, Tom Lamont, “How Mumford & Sons became the biggest band in the world”, in The Daily Telegraph[1]:
- Soon Marshall is doing an elaborate foot-to-foot jig, and then they're all bounding around. Shoulder dips. Yee-ha faces. It's an impromptu hoedown.
- (traditional English Morris dance) A dance performed by one or sometimes two individual dancers, as opposed to a dance performed by a set or team.
- (fishing) A type of lure consisting of a hook molded into a weight, usually with a bright or colorful body.
- A device in manufacturing, woodworking, or other creative endeavors for controlling the location, path of movement, or both of either a workpiece or the tool that is operating upon it. Subsets of this general class include machining jigs, woodworking jigs, welders' jigs, jewelers' jigs, and many others.
- Cutting circles out of pinewood is best done with a compass-style jig.
- (mining) An apparatus or machine for jigging ore.
- (obsolete) A light, humorous piece of writing, especially in rhyme; a farce in verse; a ballad.
- 1647, John Fletcher, Beaumont and Fletcher, The Fair Maid of the Inn:
- A jig shall be clapped at, and every rhyme / Praised and applauded by a clamorous chime.
- (obsolete) A trick; a prank.
- 1635, James Shirley, The Coronation:
- This Innovation? Is't not a fine Jigg? / A precious cunning in the late Protector / To shuffle a new Prince into the State.
Derived terms
Translations
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
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Verb
jig (third-person singular simple present jigs, present participle jigging, simple past and past participle jigged)
- To move briskly, especially as a dance.
- The guests were jigging around on the dance floor.
- To move with a skip or rhythm; to move with vibrations or jerks.
- 1893, Rudyard Kipling, The White Seal:
- […] and the fin would jig off slowly, as if it were looking for nothing at all.
- (fishing) To fish with a jig.
- To sing to the tune of a jig.
- c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
- No, my complete master, but to jig off a tune at the tongue’s end, canary to it with your feet, humor it with turning up your eyelids,
- To trick or cheat; to cajole; to delude.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Ford to this entry?)
- (mining) To sort or separate, as ore in a jigger or sieve.
- To cut or form, as a piece of metal, in a jigging machine.
Translations
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
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Etymology 2
Clipping of jigaboo,[1] of uncertain origin, perhaps an African word. Alternatively, jigaboo is derived from jig (“dance”).
Noun
jig (plural jigs)
- (US, offensive, slang, dated) A black person.
- 1980 [1969 September 3], John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces:
- “You got a new jig, huh?” The boy looked out at Jones through his swirls of oiled hair. “What happened to the last one? He die or something?”
References
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ɪɡ
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Frankish
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Music
- en:Dance
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- en:Fishing
- en:Mining
- English terms with obsolete senses
- English verbs
- Requests for quotations/Ford
- English clippings
- American English
- English offensive terms
- English slang
- English dated terms
- English ethnic slurs
- en:Dances