jolt
UK /d͡ʒɒlt/ · US /d͡ʒoʊlt/ verb, noun
- verb (transitive) To push or shake abruptly and roughly. “The bus jolted its passengers at every turn.”
- verb (transitive) To knock sharply
- verb (transitive) To shock (someone) into taking action or being alert “I jolted her out of complacency.”
- verb (transitive) To shock emotionally. “Her untimely death jolted us all.”
- verb (intransitive) To shake; to move with a series of jerks. “The car jolted along the stony path.”
- noun An act of jolting.
- noun A surprise or shock.
- noun (slang) A long prison sentence.
- noun (slang) A narcotic injection.
- noun (physics, engineering) The rate of change in acceleration with respect to time.
Synonyms
Etymology
Perhaps from joll (“to knock, strike”) + -t (frequentative suffix).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To shake with short, abrupt risings and fallings, as a carriage moving on rough ground; as, the coach jolts.
- verb To cause to shake with a sudden up and down motion, as in a carriage going over rough ground, or on a high-trotting horse; as, the horse jolts the rider; fast driving jolts the carriage and the passengers.
- noun A sudden shock or jerk; a jolting motion, as in a carriage moving over rough ground.
Etymology [Prob. fr. jole, joll, jowl, and orig. meaning, to knock on the head. See Jowl.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “jolt”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details