jimjam

English

Noun

jimjam (countable and uncountable, plural jimjams)

1. attributive form of jimjams (“pajamas”)

   Alternative form: jim-jam

   • 2014, Brigitta Gisella Geltrich-Ludgate, Fathers Can Be Good Dads:

     As I sat and pushed down my jimjam pants, Sean came in to tuck me in.

2. Placeholder word for a thing or person nonspecific, unknown or forgotten; thingamabob.
   • 1848, John Jewel (Richard William Jelf, ed), The works of John Jewel, D.D., Bishop of Salisbury:

     Ye should have done well to shew us with which foot the pope did set on the crown upon Henry's head, the right or the left, standing, sitting, leaning, or lying, barefooted and using the help of his great toe or shod, whether he had some jimjam made for him to take it up, hold it, and put it on handsomely, or conveyed it on by a vice, or how it was done.

   • 1873, The Lakeside Monthly - Volumes 10-11, page 164:

     Where the jimjam sits on the thingumbob tree, And he sweetly sings to the jigamarec.

3. Nonsense; rigmarole.
   • 1912, Will Nathaniel Harben, Paul Rundel: A Novel, page 328:

     A feller that sees a lot o' jimjam visions ahead never will buck down to real life here, an' he'll never lay up a dollar or own a foot of land.

   • 1913, The Bellman - Volume 15, page 613:

     The Mexican trouble is about one fifth genuine complication and four fifths journalistic jimjam.

   • 2013, P. D. Skelton, Renascence: A Story of Christianity in an Atheistic Future, →ISBN, page 37:

     We can eat in the kitchen, like we used to before you got old enough to ply the lads an' do all that mall jimjam with your pals.

   • 2004, Brian Jacques, Loamhedge: A Novel of Redwall, →ISBN:

     Shiver me sails an' rot me timbers, fry me barnacles, scrape me keel, an' all that nautical jimjam.

4. Chaotic activity; uproar; craziness.
   • 2006, Stephen Wright, The Amalgamation Polka, page 167:

     The whole town's in a positive jimjam.

Adjective

jimjam (not comparable)

1. Crazy; insane or befuddled.
   • 1891, Travelers' Record - Volumes 27-34, page 8:

     Insurancewise, the papers tell of a new hat-passer started in Chicago to demonstrate that Dr. Keeley's "cured" jimjam patients, whom regular companies look askance at, are as safe risks as sober men ;

   • 1920, Benjamin Lillard, Practical Druggist and Pharmaceutical Review of Reviews:

     It was just a crazy jimjam lark, concocted by a fuddled brain, but it might have had most serious consequences for the innocent clerk.

   • 2009, Richard Stevenson, Death Trick, →ISBN, page 119:

     She was having the jimjam fits. Carried on like the crazy bitch she is.”

   • 2014, JR Carroll, Hard Yards, →ISBN:

     Young guy in a caftan sitting on the floor was twisting a flower in his fingers, smiling at nothing and muttering to himself – a classic jim-jam case.

Verb

jimjam (third-person singular simple present jimjams, present participle jimjamming, simple past and past participle jimjammed)

1. To cram together in a jumbled fashion.
   • 2015, Teresa Noelle Roberts, Bad Kitty, →ISBN:

     And because of the jumbled layout of the city—old prefabs mingling with equally utilitarian new construction and makeshift hovels jimjammed in every which way—an agile person who could jump as well as she could would be able to travel a good distance going from roof to roof.

2. To befuddle or stupefy.
   • 2000, Jáchym Topol, Alex Zucker, City, sister, silver, page 114:

     I mean my nerves were totally jimjammed ... I was up shit creek, gents!

   • 2003, Denis Hamill, Long Time Gone: A Novel, →ISBN, page 277:

     "He's jimjammed on acid, man," JoJo said. "Bad trippin'. Musta got dosed."

3. To dance ecstatically.
   • 2011, Kenneth Bulmer, On the Symb-Socket Circuit, →ISBN:

     Lights blazed down, but not too strongly, so that the dancers could drift along or jimjam in ecstatic rhythm, in a simulacrum of private worlds.

   • 2015, Ernesto Mestre, The Lazarus Rumba: A Novel, →ISBN, page 1:

     They would jimjam and jitterbug flirtatiously up and around the bump in his lower nape and behind the ridge of his ear for a minute or two, and then as if yanked up and away by some resentful mother spider disappear until the next day or the day after when they would dance just a little bit longer than the time before -- until he found he could almost command their presence.

4. (euphemistic) To copulate.
   • 2007, Jonathan Lethem, Tom Perrotta, Lester Bangs, Lit Riffs, →ISBN, page 37:

     It didn't work until she spiked his orange juice with a triple dose of street acid: she sent three different girls up that day, and he fucked, sucked, and orifically jimjammed his little brains loose.