英和和英

語源

US mid-19th century. From jerk (“to move with a sudden movement”) +‎ water. Refers to the need to supply the boilers of steam trains with water. In rural areas and small towns with no water tower, where the train did not stop, this was done by scooping ("jerking") water from a track pan.

発音

• (米国発音) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɚk.wɔ.tɚ/

名詞

jerkwater (複数形 jerkwaters)

1. (US, historical) A train on a branch line.
   • 1975, Indiana Historical Society, Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 71, no. 1 (Mar. 1975), page 355

     […] by bailing from near streams with buckets, (the brake-man called this operation jerking water) and from this the road gets its name of jerkwater road.

2. A jerkwater town.
   • 2016 April 19, Rex Sorgatz, “The Internet Really Has Changed Everything. Here’s the Proof.”, in Wired:

     Twenty-five miles down the narrow arid highway, there is another town like Napoleon, a little smaller. And then twenty-five miles further, another. This chain of jerkwaters stretches for a lazy afternoon, until you finally encounter a cluster of people that almost resembles a modern civilization, with a movie theater and chain restaurants.

形容詞

jerkwater (comparative more jerkwater, superlative most jerkwater)

1. (US, colloquial, derogatory) Of an inhabited place, small, insignificant, and backward.

同意語

• See: Thesaurus:remote place

派生語

• jerkwater town

形容詞

jerk water (comparative more jerk water, superlative most jerk water)

1. (US, colloquial, derogatory) Of inhabited places, small, insignificant, isolated, backwards
   • c. 1920, Ring Lardner, The Real Dope

     But any way from the number of jerk water burgs we went through you would think we was on the Monon and the towns all looks so much like the other that […].

派生語

• jerkwater
• jerk-water

形容詞

jerk-water (comparative more jerk-water, superlative most jerk-water)

1. (米国用法, colloquial, pejorative) Of an inhabited place, small, isolated, backward.
   • 1907, Charles Stelzle, Christianity's Storm Centre: A Study of the Modern City, page 103

     That seems to disappoint them, for every sociologist likes to go back to some jerk-water college and tell those who are in the sociological class how they had to get their information by pantomime."

2. (米国用法, colloquial, pejorative, rail transport) Railroads with low traffic.
   • 1915, Daniel Jacob Hauer, The Economics of Contracting: A Treatise for Contractors, Engineers […], vol. II, page 212

     He had risen to the head of the greatest street car system in the world from the position of brakeman on a jerk-water railroad.

   • 1922, Edward Hungerford, Our Railroads To-morrow, page 297

     Can the keen-minded Mr. Willard at Baltimore be more anxious than the keen-minded Mr. Rea at Philadelphia to undertake the management of jerk-water branches in Connecticut or in Rhode Island or down on Cape Cod ?

同意語

• See: Wikisaurus:remote place

関連する語

• jerk water
• jerkwater