jack up
"jack-up" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“jack up” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To raise, hoist, or lift a thing using a jack, or similar means.
Corpus desk
Index EN-jack-up · jack up · English
jack up · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "J" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | jack up |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “jack up” in English
Rare enough to double-check
jack up is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 9 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for jack up, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: * Sense of “hoist with a jack” is from 1885; then, “increase prices, etc.” (1904, American English); both ultimately from noun jack (“mechanical device used to raise heavy objects”) * “Screw up, mess up” sense derived from, or influenced by fuck up, as a bo… The correct English form is jack up, spelled J-A-C-K- -U-P.
Definition
- 1To raise, hoist, or lift a thing using a jack, or similar means.
- 2To raise, increase, or accelerate; often said of prices, fees, or rates.
- 3To ruin; wreck; mess up; screw up; sometimes as a bowdlerized substitution for fuck up.
- 4To give up; to abandon (something, e.g. a job, contract)
- 5To organise something.
- 6To shoot, especially in the context of a poor shot opportunity.
- 7To improve or embellish on (something).
- 8To refuse to follow an order.
- 9To criticize, discipline or reprimand.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how jack up appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
He jacked the car up to change the tire
The oil rig can be jacked up higher when the hydraulic legs touch the sea floor.
Etymology
* Sense of “hoist with a jack” is from 1885; then, “increase prices, etc.” (1904, American English); both ultimately from noun jack (“mechanical device used to raise heavy objects”) * “Screw up, mess up” sense derived from, or influenced by fuck up, as a bowdlerization; also possibly influenced by jacked up (“high, intoxicated”) * First dialectal idiomatic meaning: “abandon, give up” (1873), possibly a corruption of chuck up, as chuck up the sponge (“give up, concede, give token of submission”)
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.