# jack up

> English word · Verb

## Definitions
1. To raise, hoist, or lift a thing using a jack, or similar means.
2. To raise, increase, or accelerate; often said of prices, fees, or rates.
3. To ruin; wreck; mess up; screw up; sometimes as a bowdlerized substitution for fuck up.
4. To give up; to abandon (something, e.g. a job, contract)
5. To organise something.
6. To shoot, especially in the context of a poor shot opportunity.
7. To improve or embellish on (something).
8. To refuse to follow an order.
9. To criticize, discipline or reprimand.

## 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”)

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/jack-up