Etymologically
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jog

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /d͡ʒɒɡ/[1]
  • US: /d͡ʒɑɡ/[1]

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

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