Word of the Day

: October 24, 2007

jerkwater

adjective JERK-waw-ter

What It Means

1 : remote and unimportant

2 : trivial

jerkwater in Context

"We're stranded in some jerkwater town in the middle of nowhere," said Larry when he called to tell us that the car's engine had blown.

Did You Know?

We owe the colorful Americanism "jerkwater" to the invention of the steam engine -- an advancement that significantly accelerated travel by rail but also had its drawbacks. One drawback was that the boilers of the early locomotives needed to be refilled with water frequently, and water tanks were few and far between. As a result, the small trains that ran on rural branch lines often had to stop to take on water from local supplies. Such trains were commonly called "jerkwaters" from the motion of jerking the water up in buckets from the supply to the engine. The derogatory use of "jerkwater" for things unimportant or trivial reflects the fact that these jerkwater trains typically ran on lines connecting small middle-of-nowhere towns.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.