jerky

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɜːki/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɝki/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)ki
• Hyphenation: jer‧ky

From jerk + -y.

jerky (comparative jerkier, superlative jerkiest)

1. Characterized by physical jerking, or by sudden and uneven progress.

   Synonym: jittery

   jerky flight

   jerky movement

   jerky sounds

2. (US) Having the behavior of a jerk (unpleasant person).

   jerky guy

   jerky behaviour

3. (colloquial, dated) Anxious; jumpy.
   • 1927, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados Mysteries:

     Marrabel found an ideal crevice for his loot: tight, hidden, accessible. […] His only desire was to recover the coin and get away. But the lady seemed set here, and Marrabel, ignorant of her intentions, made his first bad move. He claimed the chair, fully expecting to be given it at once. […] In strictly feminine terms she told him to go to the devil, and Marrabel, now beginning to feel jerky, veered off.

Borrowed from Spanish charqui, from Quechua charki.

• xarque (archaic)

jerky (countable and uncountable, plural jerkies)

1. Lean meat cured and preserved by cutting into thin strips and air-drying in the sun.

• jerk
• jerked beef, beef jerky
• jerked meat

• biltong
• Quechuan chunyu (freeze-dried potatoes)
• pemmican, pemican
• smoked meat
• smoker

jerky (third-person singular simple present jerkies, present participle jerkying, simple past and past participle jerkied)

1. (transitive) To cure and preserve (meat) by drying it, making jerky.

• (preserve meat by drying): jerk

• jerky up