jury-rig
/ˈdʒʊɹ.i ɹɪɡ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.77 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To build an improvised rigging or assembly from whichever materials are available.
Transitive verb
noun
An improvised rigging.
Example Sentences
- "The next day it moderated, and the day after the weather was quite fine, and the sea had gone down. We recovered our spirits, the more so as we heard no more of the cat; and having jury-rigged her aft, we steered our course with a light breeze."
- "In fact, he and his friends had kicked the idea around on the "Black Ice" board, much as they had discussed many other nifty notions, such as building personal flame-throwers and jury-rigging fistfulls of blasting-caps."
- "Tech behemoths are jury-rigging AI features into their products to avoid being disrupted—but these rollouts, and Apple’s in particular, have been disastrous, giving dangerous health advice, butchering news summaries, and generally crowding and slowing user experiences."
- "[…] the sickly, disheartening feeling which the men of some “overdue” ships that come into harbour at last under a jury-rig must have felt, combated, and overcome in the faithful discharge of their duty."
Etymology
From jury (“for temporary use, makeshift”, adjective) + rig. Likely modelled after jurymast. The phrase jury-rigged has been in use since at least 1788. The adjectival use of jury (“makeshift or temporary”), has been said to date from at least 1616, when according to the 1933 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, it appeared in John Smith's A Description of New England. It appeared in Smith's more extensive The General History of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles published in 1624.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈdʒʊɹ.i ɹɪɡ/
- British English: /ˈdʒʊə.ɹi ɹɪɡ/