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jounce

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 4 June 2026

Etymology

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The verb is derived from Late Middle English *jouncen (“to jolt violently”) (evidenced by jouncinge (“violent jolting movement”));[1] further etymology unknown,[2] possibly imitative.[1]

The noun is probably derived from the verb as it is attested later.[3]

Pronunciation

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Verb

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jounce (third-person singular simple present jounces, present participle jouncing, simple past and past participle jounced)

  1. (transitive) To shake (someone or something) up and down, for example, by driving a vehicle over obstructions or riding a horse roughly; to jolt.
    • 1581, Richard Mulcaster, “Of Riding”, in Positions wherin Those Primitive Circvmstances be Examined, which are Necessarie for the Training Vp of Children, either for Skill in Their Booke, or Health in Their Bodie. […], London: […] Thomas Vautrollier for Thomas Chare [i.e., Chard], →OCLC, pages 95–96:
      If any vvillbe ſo vvilfull as to denie Riding to be an exerciſe and that a great one, and fitteſt alſo for greateſt perſonages, ſet him either vpon a trotting iade to iounſe him thoroughly or vpon a lame hakney to make him exerciſe his feete, vvhen his courſer failes him.
    • 1828, John Neal, chapter VI, in Rachel Dyer: A North American Story, Portland, Me.: Shirley and Hyde, →OCLC, pages 79–80:
      [T]hat air feller, what dooze he do, but he jounces me up on that air plaguy crupper and fetches me back here full split, you see, and rides over everything, and makes everybody get out o' the way, […]
    • 1890 June 21 (date written), James Heddon, “From the Hive to the Honey Market”, in The Bee-keepers’ Review, volume III, number 7, Flint, Mich.: W. Z. Hutchinson, published 10 July 1890, →OCLC, page 125, column 2:
      Send these nice, white, clean shipping cases of honey to a commission man, without any instruction whatever, and he will have the genius and liberality to slap them upon a dray, jounce them to his store, rub them around and over an old, dirty floor, sell a part of it for less than you expected, fail to pay for it until he sells the other part, which he will do after six months or a year, then he will remit, provided the debt has not yet got so old that it is outlawed or he does not "bust up" in business in the mean time.
    • 1896 November – 1897 May, Rudyard Kipling, chapter X, in “Captains Courageous”, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, published 1897, →OCLC, page 256:
      Harvey Cheyne's wife, she were sick back, an' we didn't want to jounce her.
    • 1909, “[Letters of Obscure Men (Part I).] [Letter] XLV: Arnold von Tongern, Magister Noster of Holy Scripture, Sendeth Greeting to Magister Ortwin Gratius.”, in Francis Griffin Stokes, transl., Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum: […], London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 379:
      I ask you if one, having a drawn sword in one hand and its scabbard in the other, jounceth the scabbard—is it to impede the sword?
    • 1921, Harvey Wickham, “Introducing the Garden of Eden”, in The Clue of the Primrose Petal, New York, N.Y.: Edward J. Clode, →OCLC, page 9:
      So now, stimulated by some further experience with that world which does not care a tinker's damn whether a verb agrees with its subject in number and person or not, she permitted the taxicab to jounce her smile out of all semblance to anything calmly superior and into a very unschoolmarmish grin.
  2. (intransitive) To move vigorously up and down; to bounce, to bump, to jolt; also, to fall and hit something heavily.
    Near-synonym: jostle
    • 1887, Hall Caine, chapter VIII, in A Son of Hagar: A Romance of Our Time […], volume I, London: Chatto and Windus, […], →OCLC, 1st book (Retro Me, Sathana), page 156:
      The lawyer was jouncing along towards the house with a lantern in his hand.
    • 1931 February 9, William Faulkner, chapter VIII, in Sanctuary (The Modern Library of the World’s Best Books; no. 61), New York, N.Y.: The Modern Library, published 1962, →OCLC, page 74:
      She felt herself swooping, then she was lying on the bed beside Gowan, on her back, jouncing to the dying chatter of the shucks.
    • 1971 March and May, Ursula K[roeber] Le Guin, chapter 1, in The Lathe of Heaven, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1971, →ISBN, page 4:
      The bed jounced when Mannie sat down on it where the medic had been sitting.
    • 2010 November 20, Barry Bearak, “Zambia uneasily balances Chinese investment and workers’ resentment”, in The New York Times (Africa section)‎[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 11 January 2025:
      Hundreds of angry coal miners pushed toward the locked gate at Shaft 3, shouting and cursing as they neared the mine's Chinese managers, who understood neither the English nor the Tonga words of the mob. As the workers butted up against the fence, the bosses grew more fearful and finally two fired their shotguns. The Zambian miners scrambled in terror. Bodies pivoted, jounced and stumbled. Boston Munakazela did not know he was hit until he suddenly fell over and saw the blood on his chest and arms.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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jounce (plural jounces)

  1. A vigorous up-and-down movement; a jolt, a shake.
    Synonym: jouncing
    • 1823 December, “Art[icle] IV. Suffolk Words and Phrases; or, an Attempt to Correct the Lingual Localities of that County. By Edward Moor, F.R.S. F.A.S., &c. 12mo. 525 pp. 10s. 6d. Hunter. 1823. [book review]”, in British Critic, volume XX (New Series), London: […] [F]or C[harles] & J[ohn] Rivington, […]; by R[ichard] Gilbert, […], →OCLC, page 602:
      Take care of the grips, or we shall have some jounces [jolts], and keep the middle of the road over Woolpit warren, for the sides are caved in, […]
    • 1852 May, “The Logging Encampment. A Sketch of the Woods.”, in F[rederic] D[an] Huntington, editor, The Monthly Religious Magazine, volume VII (Second Series; volume IX overall), number 5, Boston, Mass.: Leonard C. Bowles, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 211:
      […] I protest that an open wagon is the very best thing to ride in that ever was invented. If it is hard in the springs, so much the merrier! […] Off we started with a jounce over the barn-door sill, that nearly dislocated my neck, and a violent nodding to my cousin's wife that set it all right again, and an alarming scattering of hens and chickens before us.
    • 1853 January, Edward Wigglesworth, “Art[icle] III.—Reflections.”, in The Christian Examiner and Religious Miscellany, volume XIX, number I (4th Series; volume LIV, number CLXXV, overall), Boston, Mass.: Crosby, Nichols, and Company […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 47:
      Scruples are like the sand-bags in a balloon. He who throws them all overboard rises with ease, but is likely to come down with a jounce.
    • 1924, Albert Payson Terhune, “The Tracker”, in The Heart of a Dog, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, →OCLC, page 112:
      [A] stumbling step took him clean off the edge of the world, and into the air. […] Then, he landed with a jounce in a heap of brush and dead leaves.
    • 2007, Don Knowles, “Rear Suspension Systems”, in Classroom Manual for Automotive Suspension & Steering Systems (Today’s Technician), 4th edition, Clifton Park, N.Y.: Thomson Delmar Learning, →ISBN, page 164:
      When the drive axles have inner and outer joints, rear wheel camber change is minimized during wheel jounce and rebound.
  2. (physics) The fourth derivative of the position vector with respect to time; the time derivative of jerk.
    Synonym: snap
    Coordinate terms: crackle, pop
    • 1974, Arvid Myklebust, “Recommendations and Conclusions”, in Synthesis of Multi-link Mechanisms for Dynamic Specifications: A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation), Gainesville, Fla.: University of Florida, →OCLC, page 180:
      The fourth derivative (jounce) may be used to find the tangential and normal loci in the same manner as for the second and third order properties.
    • [2011, Brian E. Blank, Steven G[eorge] Krantz, “The Derivative”, in Calculus: Single & Multivariable, 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 232:
      When you are in an elevator that is not working properly, and your stomach feels as if it were left behind on the previous floor, then you are experiencing jerk. […] No term for the rate of change of jerk, the fourth derivative of position, is in widespread usage, although jounce has been suggested.]
    • [2014], “Derivatives and Integrals”, in Calculus, Boston, Mass.: Boundless, →OCLC, section 1 (Derivatives):
      If x(t) represents the position of an object at time t, then the higher-order derivatives of x have physical interpretations. The second derivative of x is the derivative of x′(t), the velocity, and by definition is the object's acceleration. The third derivative of x is defined to be the jerk, and the fourth derivative is defined to be the jounce.

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 “jǒuncinge, ger.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “jounce, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2026; “jounce, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  3. ^ “jounce, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2026.

Further reading

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