Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various lively dances in triple time.
  • noun The music for such a dance.
  • noun A joke or trick. Used chiefly in the phrase The jig is up.
  • noun A typically metal fishing lure with one or more hooks, usually deployed with a jiggling motion on or near the bottom.
  • noun An apparatus for cleaning or separating crushed ore by agitation in water.
  • noun A device for guiding a tool or for holding machine work in place.
  • intransitive verb To dance or play a jig.
  • intransitive verb To move or bob up and down jerkily and rapidly.
  • intransitive verb To operate a jig.
  • intransitive verb To bob or jerk (something) up and down or to and fro.
  • intransitive verb To machine (an object) with the aid of a jig.
  • intransitive verb To separate or clean (ore) by shaking a jig.
  • idiom (in jig time) Very quickly; rapidly.
  • noun Used as a disparaging term for a black person.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A rapid, irregular dance for one or more persons, performed in different ways in different countries; a modification of the country-dance.
  • noun Music for such a dance or in its rhythm, which is usually triple and rapid: often used in the eighteenth century as a component of a suite.
  • noun A lively song; a catch.
  • noun A kind of entertainment in rime, partly sung and partly recited.
  • noun A piece of sport; a prank; a trick.
  • noun A small, light mechanical contrivance: same as jigger, 2: used especially in composition: as, a drilling-jig, shaving-jig, etc.
  • To play or dance a jig.
  • To move skippingly or friskily; hop about; act or vibrate in a lively manner. Compre jigget.
  • To use a jig in fishing; fish with a jig: as, to jig for bluefish.
  • To sing in jig time; sing as a jig.
  • To jerk, jolt, or shake; cause to move by jogs or jolts.
  • To produce an up-and-down motion in.
  • In metallurgy, to separate the heavier metalliferous portion of (the mingled ore and rock or veinstone obtained in mining) from the lighter or earthy portions, by means of a jig or jigging-machine.
  • To catch (a fish) by jerking a hook into its body.
  • In felting, to harden and condense by repeated blows from rods.
  • In well-boring, to drill with a spring-pole.
  • To trick; cheat; impose; upon; bamboozle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To sing to the tune of a jig.
  • transitive verb To trick or cheat; to cajole; to delude.
  • transitive verb (Mining) To sort or separate, as ore in a jigger or sieve. See Jigging, n.
  • transitive verb (Metal Working) To cut or form, as a piece of metal, in a jigging machine.
  • noun (Mus.) A light, brisk musical movement.
  • noun obsolete A light, humorous piece of writing, esp. in rhyme; a farce in verse; a ballad.
  • noun obsolete A piece of sport; a trick; a prank.
  • noun A trolling bait, consisting of a bright spoon and a hook attached.
  • noun (Metal Working) A small machine or handy tool.
  • noun (Mining) An apparatus or a machine for jigging ore.
  • noun a jig for guiding a drill. See Jig, 6 (a).
  • noun (Metal Working) a process of drilling or filing in which the action of the tool is directed or limited by a jig.
  • noun a sawing machine with a narrow, vertically reciprocating saw, used to cut curved and irregular lines, or ornamental patterns in openwork, a scroll saw; -- called also gig saw.
  • intransitive verb To dance a jig; to skip about.
  • intransitive verb To move with a skip or rhythm; to move with vibrations or jerks.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably shortening of jigaboo.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

An assimilated form of earlier gig, from Middle English gigge, from Old French gige, gigue ("a fiddle, kind of dance"), from Frankish *gīge (“dance, fiddle”), from Proto-Germanic *gīganan (“to move, wish, desire”), from Proto-Indo-European *gheiǵh-, *gheigh- (“to yawn, gape, long for, desire”). Cognate with Middle Dutch ghighe ("fiddle"), German Geige ("fiddle, violin"), Danish gige ("fiddle"), Icelandic gigja ("fiddle"). More at gig, geg.

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Examples

  • Re-jig is short for rejigger which according to Merriam-Webster's means to alter or rearrange.

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  • The drop of the jig is the most important part of its action -- but I'll expand that more later.

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  • While a jig is a jig is a jig, head designs also vary according to purpose.

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  • This jig is a big producer because it takes hardly any action to make fish hit it.

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  • Plus you keep a better handle on where the jig is and you have a more direct line to the lure.

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  • Monofilament of the same diameter goes down a little faster, but it stretches as much as 25 to 35 percent, meaning if the jig is at 200 feet or more, you'd have to move the rod tip up and down 4 or 5 feet just to get the jig to move a few inches.

    Jig Time 1999

  • The FBI, for instance, follows lower-level drug smugglers instead of arresting them all the time, but if they see one of them stuff someone in a trunk, the jig is up and they pull over the car.

    Matthew Yglesias » The Politics of Terror 2010

  • That being said, it almost makes sense that they would vilify the very people who they bilked, conned, and stole from, now that the jig is up.

    Richard Zombeck: Bankers New Tactic: Blame the Victim Richard Zombeck 2010

  • That being said, it almost makes sense that they would vilify the very people who they bilked, conned, and stole from, now that the jig is up.

    Richard Zombeck: Bankers New Tactic: Blame the Victim Richard Zombeck 2010

  • Weight: 1 oz. Details: The action of an Air-Plane jig is hard to beat.

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  • In the collieries, an incline that was constructed so that corves (baskets) full of coal traveling down the pull would haul empty corves up.

    September 21, 2011