jockey

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a professional rider who competes in horse races

   The jockey guided the horse through a narrow opening near the rail.

2. 2
   verb

   to maneuver carefully or competitively in order to gain a favorable position or advantage

   Several candidates jockeyed for influence before the leadership vote.

3. 3
   verb

   to handle, operate, or move something skillfully, especially a vehicle or machine

   The driver jockeyed the truck into the crowded loading bay.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Jockey began as a pet form of Jock, the northern form of Jack, and was applied generally to an ordinary man, boy, or underling. It then developed the specialized sense of a servant acting as a mounted courier, from which the modern riding sense emerged in the 17th century. American uses for particular kinds of workers later helped produce disc jockey in the 1940s.

A diminutive of Jock, a Scots form of John once used generically for a boy or fellow. It was applied to horse dealers and riders, some stereotyped as cunning, which produced the racing noun and the verb senses of maneuvering or outwitting.

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary