Definition of "jerk"

The black cloth bestrewn with white beads blew up from time to time, laying bare the coffin. The tired bearers walked more slowly, and it advanced with constant jerks, like a boat that pitches with every wave.

1856, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

A barrel-organ in the street suddenly sprang with a jerk into a jovial tune.

1908, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, Bristol: J[ames] W[illiams] Arrowsmith, […]; London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company, page 114

Oh, Raymond―don't be such a jerk. Go and get yourself a drink or a tranquilizer or something.

1962, George Axelrod, 1:23:39 from the start, in The Manchurian Candidate, spoken by Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury)

Hey, Demon! The jerk store called, and they're all out of you!

2007 September 25, Bungie, Halo 3, v1.0, Microsoft Game Studios, Xbox 360, level/area: Halo

Girls, hey, what's that you're doingGirl, girl, what's that you're doingYou got to show me the steps to itSomehow, gonna learn how to do itDoing the jerkHey, do the jerkGirl, come on and workHey, do the jerk.

1964, “The Jerk”, Don Julian (lyrics), performed by The Larks

York came to me first, whilst the groom stood at Ginger's head. He drew my head back and fixed the rein so tight that it was almost intolerable; then he went to Ginger, who was impatiently jerking her head up and down against the bit, as was her way now.

1877, Anna Sewell, “Chapter 23”, in Black Beauty: […], London: Jarrold and Sons, […]

Sunshine ranks high in the island's greates burger debate, while the chicken egg rolls with mango chutney and jerk mayo and fabulous fish tacos elevate pub grub to an art.

2016, Fodor's Essential Caribbean, Fodor's Travel

Snow stalled him in the timber; his food was all but gone when he managed to kill an antelope and jerk a supply of venison.

1954, Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West, Houghton Mifflin, page 37

The Lemakot in the north strangled widows and threw them into the cremation pyres of their dead husbands. If they defeated potential invaders the New Irish hanged the vanquished from banyan trees, flensed their windpipes, removed their heads, left their intestines to jerk in the sun.

2011, Dominic Smith, Bright and Distant Shores, page 106

This longtime West End eatery prepares chicken the way locals like it: curried, fried, jerked, and baked.

2016, Fodor's Travel Guides, Fodor's Essential Caribbean, Fodor's Travel