| Library / English Dictionary |
JERKING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An abrupt spasmodic movement
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("jerking" is a kind of...):
motility; motion; move; movement (a change of position that does not entail a change of location)
Derivation:
jerk (make an uncontrolled, short, jerky motion)
jerk (move with abrupt, seemingly uncontrolled motions)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Lacking a steady rhythm
Example:
an arrhythmic heartbeat
Synonyms:
arrhythmic; jerking; jerky
Classified under:
Similar:
unsteady (subject to change or variation)
III. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb jerk
Context examples:
“Why that horse,” said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him out, “would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground.”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
"Miranha or Amajuaca cannibals," said Challenger, jerking his thumb towards the reverberating wood.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“She must be a pretty old woman now,” he said, staring meditatively into the binnacle and then jerking a sharp glance at Harrison, who was steering a point off the course.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
These jerking movements were in unison with the recurrent spasms that attacked the throat, each spasm severer and more intense than the preceding one.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
By this time the gas-bag had swollen to a goodly rotundity and was jerking strongly upon its lashings.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I had heard of jerking beef on the plains, and our seal-meat, cut in thin strips and hung in the smoke, cured excellently.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
He sat down abruptly on his haunches, thrusting his nose upward, the mouth opening and closing with jerking movements, each time opening wider.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
And well he might be, eighty feet above the deck, to trust himself on those thin and jerking ropes.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
With a desperation that was madness, unmindful of the pain, he hurried up the slope to the crest of the hill over which his comrade had disappeared—more grotesque and comical by far than that limping, jerking comrade.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
The cook stuck his head out of the galley door and grinned encouragingly at me, at the same time jerking his thumb in the direction of the man who paced up and down by the hatchway.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
