| Definitions | | jack-knife |
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noun (plural: jack-knives; spelling variant: jackknife, plural: jackknives.
Note: the two spellings appear roughly equally common.)
- A compact folding knife.
- He kept a 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 (1)
- German: Taschenmesser (1)
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.
- Before I knew what was happening, I'd jack-knifed like nobody's business.
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