jog

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2][3][4] The OED, which finds the word only from the 16th century, takes it as apparently imitative and akin to shog, a synonym recorded earlier;^[2] Klein and Weekley also call it imitative.^[5][6] Many dictionaries think it perhaps altered from Middle English shoggen (“to shake, jolt, move with a jerk”),^[3][4][7][8] a word of uncertain origin recorded from the late 14th century,^[3][4] which the Middle English Dictionary takes as perhaps an imitative alteration of shokken.^[9] Barnhart compares Middle Dutch schocken (“to shake”), the source of shock;^[4] the American Heritage Dictionary derives shoggen from Middle Low German schocken.^[8] Dictionary.com sees a blend of shog with the dialect verb jot, to jog,^[10] and Collins an influence of that verb.^[11] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English instead take it as a variant of the verb jag, to stab, with a sense "to stab, pierce" in late Middle English.^[12][13][14] The OED rejects a Celtic origin.^[2] The noun meaning a projecting point or a notch (1715) is a variant of the same word in the sense of a sharp projection.^[2][4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To shake or move something heavy with a push or jerk: 1548, in Cooper's revised edition of Elyot's dictionary.^[2][4][7]

Semantic evolution

Within the 16th century the verb spread from shaking to moving with a jolting pace (1565), being moved up and down (1586), giving a slight nudge (1589) and, figuratively, stirring the memory (1601).^[2][3][4] Johnson defined the riding sense as moving "with small shocks like those of a low trot",^[2] and jog on or jog along, to keep going steadily, is recorded from Shakespeare's Winter's Tale.^[2] In 16th-century underworld slang to be jogging was to leave.^[15] The running sense began in horsemanship, where jogging was exercising a horse at a slow pace,^[3] and Barnhart notes its extension to running in Stevenson's Kidnapped.^[4] Running slowly for fitness dates mostly from 1948, first as a training regimen for athletes, and became a popular fad around 1967;^[3] the noun for such a run is recorded from 1977.^[3] The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins notes that few joggers know the original sense "to nudge, shake".^[14] The noun jog, a notch or step in a line or surface, is American from 1845,^[2][4] and Merriam-Webster dates the matching verb, to form such a jog, to 1953.^[7]

Timeline

• 1548 – to shake or move with a push or jerk.^[2][4]
• 1565 – to walk or ride with a jolting pace.^[2][4]
• 1589 – to nudge, especially to rouse attention.^[2]
• 1601 – to jog the memory.^[2][4]
• 1611 – noun, an act of jogging up and down; a slow trot.^[2][4]
• 1635 – noun, a slight push or nudge.^[2][7]
• 1715 – noun, a projecting point.^[2]
• 1845 – noun, a right-angled notch or step, in American English.^[2][4]
• 1948 – to run slowly for exercise.^[3]
• 1951 – noun, a step in a dislocation, in crystallography.^[2]
• 1977 – noun, a slow run for fitness.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To run at a slow, steady pace, especially for exercise: He jogs along the canal every morning.^[11][7]
2. To push or shake slightly; to nudge: Someone jogged my arm and I spilled the tea.^[11][7]
3. To stir or prompt, especially the memory: The photograph jogged his memory.^[11][7]
4. To move at a slow, jolting pace, or to continue in a plodding way (often with on or along).^[11][7][2]
5. (printing) To even up the edges of a stack of paper.^[11]
6. To change direction briefly or form a jog: The lane jogs left past the church.^[7]

Noun

1. A slow, steady run.^[11][7]
2. A slight push or jolt.^[11][7]
3. A jogging motion; a slow trot.^[11][7]
4. (chiefly US) A short change of direction, or a right-angled notch or step in a line or surface.^[7][2]

Word family

• jogger
• joggle

Related words

• shog
• jag
• shock
• jolt

References

1. ^ a b 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 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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com