blackjack

Etymology

It is formed from English black + jack,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} and the OED treats it as three compounds, each with a different sense of jack.^[2] In the oldest sense, a black leather jerkin, the second element is jack "jacket";^[2][4] in the leather beer jug and most later senses it is Jack, the man's name used for all kinds of things and implements;^[2][4] and in the pirate flag it is jack "flag".^[2] Merriam-Webster explains the miners' name for sphalerite from jack "man", the ore being thought an impish intruder worthless beside the lead;^[4] Collins likewise calls it the miners' name for a useless ore.^[5] Collins connects the weapon with jack "implement", and the card game with jack "the knave".^[5][7] Etymonline sums up the word as black with jack in any of its many slang senses.^[3] The verb is from the noun in its weapon sense.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A black leather jerkin: before 1522, in Gavin Douglas's translation of the Aeneid;^[2] Merriam-Webster dates it to about 1522 and labels it archaic and Scottish.^[4] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1505–15.^[6] The leather jug is recorded from about 1540, in an inventory,^[2][4] though Etymonline dates it to the 1590s and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate to 1591.^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

The tar-coated leather jug for beer, now a historical term, gave way to a long series of unrelated things called black jack: sphalerite in mining (1728), a scrubby North American oak (1765), the black caterpillar of the turnip sawfly (1807), caramel or burnt sugar (1851), and in South Africa the barbed black seed of Bidens pilosa (1876).^[2] The Oxford Dictionary of English suggests that the plant was named after the bludgeon, which its seeds resemble.^[9] A pirate's black flag is recorded from 1846,^[2] from 1867 in Etymonline.^[3] The short lead-filled truncheon, originally American, appears in 1848, and the verb "to strike with a blackjack" a year earlier;^[2][4] Etymonline dates the weapon to 1889.^[3] From it came the sense "to coerce by threats".^[4][5] The gambling card game, in which players try to make 21, is recorded from 1899, in a book on the Klondike;^[2] it is the same game as vingt-et-un and pontoon.^[2][5] The OED notes that the weapon and the card game are now written as one word.^[2] In slang, blackjack was American rum sweetened with molasses (1843),^[10][2] a thug (1929) and amphetamine (1965),^[10] and under apartheid a member of a black police force in the townships (1966).^[2][10] In the United States it is also a name for several dark ducks.^[4][11]

Timeline

• before 1522 – a black leather jerkin.^[2]
• c. 1540 – a large tar-coated leather jug for beer.^[2][4]
• 1728 – in mining, the mineral sphalerite.^[2]
• 1765 – a shrubby North American oak, the blackjack oak.^[2]
• 1843 – American slang, rum sweetened with molasses.^[10]
• 1846 – a pirate's black flag.^[2] Etymonline dates it to 1867.^[3]
• 1847 – verb, to strike with a blackjack.^[2][4]
• 1848 – a short flexible truncheon filled with lead.^[2] Etymonline dates it to 1889.^[3]
• 1851 – caramel, burnt sugar.^[2]
• 1876 – in South Africa, the black seed of Bidens pilosa, and the plant itself.^[2]
• 1899 – the card game twenty-one.^[2] Etymonline dates it to 1900.^[3]
• 1966 – South African slang, a member of a township police force of black officers.^[2][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A card game in which players try to collect cards worth 21 points, or as close to 21 as possible without going over; twenty-one, pontoon: They played blackjack until the casino closed.^[2][5][12]
2. A hand in this game made up of an ace and a face card.^[5]
3. A short club of leather-covered lead with a flexible handle or strap, used as a weapon; a cosh.^[5][12][4]
4. A scrubby oak of the eastern and southern United States, Quercus marilandica; the blackjack oak.^[12][8][2]
5. The mineral sphalerite, especially a dark variety rich in iron.^[5][12][2]
6. (historical) A large beer tankard or jug of tar-coated leather.^[8][2][4]
7. A pirate's black flag.^[2][3]
8. (archaic) A black leather jerkin.^[4][2]

Verb

1. To hit someone with a blackjack.^[5][4][2]
2. To coerce someone by threats or pressure: The gang blackjacked the shopkeepers into paying.^[5][4][12]

Related words

• jack
• black
• jacket
• pontoon
• vingt-et-un

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Encarta World English Dictionary (2009 ed.), Redmond: Microsoft
8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
11. ^ Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
12. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin