English
wikipedia|jackknife
Noun
jack-knife (plural: jack-knives; spelling variant: jackknife, plural: jackknives.
Note: the two spellings appear roughly equally common.)
- A compact folding knife.
#: He kept a jack-knife in his pocket for various tasks.
- The front-dive pike, in which the body folds and unfolds.
#: It took me hundreds of dives to master even the simple jackknife
- colloquial A semi-trailer truck accident in which the vehicle mimics the closing of a jack-knife.
#: I have seen several jack-knives along that dangerous stretch of road.
- (physics A statistical tool for error estimation, so called for its usefulness.
#: The jackknife provides a reasonably robust way to measure error propagation.
Translations
Dutch: zakmes n (1)
Frisian: bûsmês n (1), knyft n (1)
German: Taschenmesser n (1)
Verb
en-verb|jack-knif|ing
or spelling variant
to jackknife (third-person singular simple present jackknifes, present participle jackknifing, simple past jackknifed, past participle jackknifed)
- To fold in the middle, as a jackknife does.
#: The cat jackknifed in the air and landed gracefully on its feet.
- colloquial To cause a semi-trailer truck to fold like a jackknife in a traffic accident.
#: Before I knew what was happening, I'd jack-knifed the rig like nobody's business. <!--transitive-->
#: Before I knew what was happening, I'd jack-knifed like nobody's business. <!--intransitive-->
Category:English nouns with irregular plurals
fi:jack-knife
vi:jack-knife
zh:jack-knife
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