Emily Dickinson Lexicon

JADE, n.¹ [of unknown origin. Qu. Sp. jadear, to pant.]

1. A mean or poor horse; a tired horse; a worthless nag. Tired as a jade in overloaden cart. – Sidney.
2. A mean woman; a word of contempt, noting sometimes age, but generally vice. – Johnson. She shines the first of battered jades. – Swift.
3. A young woman; in irony or slight contempt. – Addison.

JADE, n.²

A mineral called also nephrite or nephritic stone, remarkable for its hardness and tenacity, of a color more or less green, and of a resinous or oily aspect when polished. It is fusible into a glass or enamel. Cleaveland divides jade into three subspecies, nephrite, saussurite, and axestone. It is found in detached masses or inhering in rocks. – Werner. Jameson. Cleaveland.

JADE, v.i.

To become weary; to lose spirit; to sink. They are promising in the beginning, but they fail and jade and tire in the prosecution. – South.

JADE, v.t.

1. To tire; to fatigue; to weary with hard service; as, to jade a horse.
2. To weary with attention or study; to tire. The mind once jaded by an attempt above its power, is very hardly brought to exert its force again. Locke.
3. To harass; to crush. – Shak.
4. To tire or wear out in mean offices; as, a jaded groom. – Shak.
5. To ride; to rule with tyranny. I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me. – Shak.

JAD'ED, pp.

Tired; wearied; fatigued; harassed.

JADE'RY, n.

The tricks of a jade. – Beaum.

JAD'ING, ppr.

Tiring; wearying; harassing.

JAD'ISH, a.

1. Vicious; bad, like a jade.
2. Unchaste. – L'Estrange.

JAG, n. [Sp. zaga, a load, packed on the back part of a carriage. Qu.]

A small load.

JAGG, or JAG, n.

A tooth of a saw; a denticulation. In botany, a cleft or division. – Martyn.

JAGG, v.t. [perhaps G. zacken, a tooth, a prong, to indent; Sw. tagg, a sharp point.]

To notch; to cut into notches or teeth like those of a saw.

JAG'GED, pp.

1. Notched; uneven.
2. adj. Having notches or teeth; cleft; divided; laciniate; as, jagged leaves.

JAG'GED-NESS, n.

The state of being denticulated; unevenness. – Peacham.

JAG'GER-Y, n.

In Burman, sugar from the sap of the Palmyra tree.

JAG'GING, ppr.

Notching; cutting into teeth; dividing.

JAG'GING-I-RON, n.

An instrument for making cakes, with ornamental figures.

JAG'GY, a.

Set with teeth; denticulated; uneven. – Addison.

JAG-U-AR', n.

The American tiger, or once of Brasil, belonging to the genus Felis. – Cyc.

JAH, n.

Jehovah.

JAIL, n. [Fr. geole; Arm. geol or jol; Sp. jaula, a cage, a cell. Sometimes written very improperly gaol, and as improperly pronounced gole.]

A prison; a building or place for the confinement of persons arrested for debt or for crime, and held in the custody of the sherif.

JAIL'BIRD, n.

A prisoner; one who has been confined in prison.

JAIL'ER, n.

The keeper of a prison.

JAIL'FE-VER, n.

A dangerous and often fatal fever generated in jails and other places crowded with people.

JAKES, n. [Qu. L. jacio, to throw.]

A house of office or back-house; a privy. – Swift.

JAL'AP, n. [Port. jalapa; Fr. jalap; Sp. xalapa; so called from Xalapa, a province in Mexico, whence it is imported.]

The root of a plant, a species of Convolvulus. It is brought in thin transverse slices, and also whole, of an oval shape, hard, solid and heavy. It has little or no taste or smell, but is much used in powder as a cathartic. – Cyc.