Forms: 6 Sc. ieig, 6–7 iyg, iigge, iygge, gigge, 7 gig, ijgge, 7–8 jigg, 7– jig. [Origin uncertain. Often assumed to be identical with OF. gigue a kind of stringed instrument, a rude fiddle, It. and Sp. giga, MHG. gîge, Ger. geige; but as to this there are difficulties: the OF. word had none of the senses of jig, it was also obs. long before jig is known to have existed; moreover, mod.F. gigue the dance, and dance tune (exemplified 1680) is not a continuation of OF. gigue, but is said by Darmesteter to have been simply adopted from Eng. jig. In this uncertainty as to the origin and history of the word, the order of senses here presented is provisional; those in 6 are in part directly from the stem of JIG v.
Apparently the only way in which jig could be connected with OF. gigue, would be its formation from JIG v., the derivation of the latter from F. giguer, ginguer ‘to leap, frolic, gambol,’ and the formation of this from OF. gigue. But not one of these steps is certain: in particular the senses and chronology of JIG v. offer difficulties.]
1. A lively, rapid, springy kind of dance.
c. 1560. A. Scott, Poems (S. T. S.), iv. 58. Sum luvis, new cum to toun, With jeigis to mak thame joly; Sum luvis dance vp and doun, To meiss thair malancoly.
1599. Marston, Sco. Villanie, x. The Orbes celestiall will daunce Kemps Iigge.
1599. Shaks., Much Ado, II. i. 78. Wooing … is hot and hasty like a Scotch ijgge (and full as fantasticall).
1624. Bp. Hall, Serm. Hampton Crt., Sept. Surely jiggs at a Funeral … are things prodigiously unseasonable.
1634. Milton, Comus, 952. All the swains that there abide With jigs and rural dance resort.
1775. A. Burnaby, Trav., 46. When the company are pretty well tired with country dances, it is usual to dance jiggs.
1843. Lever, J. Hinton, xvii. (1878), 124. The whole party would take hands and dance round the table to the measure of an Irish jig.
† b. St. Vitus’s jig: St. Vitus’s dance, chorea.
1702. Baynard, Cold Baths, II. (1709), 377. A Youth that had lost the use of his Limbs by a sort of a Chorea sancti Viti (called Saint Vitus’s Jigg).
c. [f. JIG v.] Fidgety movement: in phr. on the jig. (colloq.)
1881. Jefferies, Wood Magic, I. ii. 25. The sight of the white steam, and the humming of the fly-wheel, always set Bevis ‘on the jig,’ as the village folk called it, to get to the machinery.
2. The music for such a dance; a rapid lively dance-tune; spec. one in triple rhythm (usually 6–8 or 12–8) used as the last movement of a suite (oftener in the Fr. form GIGUE or It. GIGA).
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., IV. iii. 168. To see great Hercules whipping a Gigge, And profound Salomon tuning a Iygge.
1593. Donne, Sat., iv. 147. As fidlers still, Though they be paid to be gone, yet needs will Thrust one more iig upon you.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., II. ii. VI. iii. The sound of those Gigges and Hornpipes.
1649. Lovelace, Poems (1864), 128. In the same key with monkeys jiggs Or dirges of proscribed piggs.
1674. Playford, Skill Mus., Pref. 9. Our late solemn Musick is now justled out of esteem by the new Corants and Jigs of Foreigners.
1747. H. Walpole, Lett. (1846), II. 177. They sing to jigs, and dance to church music.
1878. Browning, Poets Croisic, cxix. What some player-prig Means for a grave tune though it proves a jig.
† 3. A song or ballad of lively, jocular or mocking (often scurrilous) character. (In 17th c. applied in mockery to metrical versions of the Psalms.)
1570. Foxe, A. & M. (ed. 2), I. 470. The Scottish Gigges and rymes were these, Long berdes hartles, Paynted hoodes, witles.
1590. Marlowe, Edw. II., II. ii. The fleering Scots, To England’s high disgrace, have made this jig; ‘Maids of England, sore may you mourn, For your lemans you have lost at Bannocksbourn, With a heave and a ho!’
1611. Florio, Chiarantána, a kinde of Caroll or song full of leapings like a Scotish gigge.
1621. Molle, Camerar. Liv. Libr., V. ii. 322. In praise of him certaine jygges were made.
16[?]. Roxb. Ball., II. 257. Man in Moon, In wine we call for bawdy jiggs, Catzoes, rumbillows, whirligigs.
c. 1657. Cent. Art. agst. Clergy, in J. Walker, Suffer. Clergy (1714), 82. The singing of Hopkins’s Psalms, which he called Hopkins’s jiggs.
1673. R. Leigh, Transp. Reh., 17. Having had our Geneva Jigg, let us advance.
† 4. A light performance or entertainment of a lively or comical character, given at the end, or in an interval, of a play. Obs.
Perhaps originally mainly consisting of song and dance (quot. 1632), but evidently sometimes of the nature of a farce.
a. 1592. Greene, Jas. IV., I. Interl. Here see I good fond actions in thy jig.
1602. Shaks., Ham., II. ii. 522. He’s for a Iigge, or a tale of Baudry.
1611. Cotgr., Farce,… the Iyg at the end of an Enterlude, wherein some pretie knauerie is acted.
1632. D. Lupton, London & C. Carbonadoed, xx. 81. Most commonly when the play is done, you shal haue a Iigge or dance of all trads, they mean to put their legs to it, as well as their tongs.
1654. Gayton, Pleas. Notes, IV. iii. 187. Untill the sad Catastrophe shews the Play to be a jig, all mockery and mirth.
1700. Playhouse Advt., in Flying Post, 4 July. Miss Evans’s Jigg and Irish dance.
1728. Pope, Dunc., III. 238. A fire, a jigg, a battle, and a ball.
1864. Shaw, Hist. Eng. Lit., vi. (1875), 125. At the end of the piece, or occasionally perhaps between the acts, the clown or jester performed what was called a jig.
5. A piece of sport, a joke; a jesting matter, a trifle; a sportive trick or cheat. The jig is up = ‘the game is up,’ it is all over. Now dial. or slang.
1592. Nashe, P. Penilesse (ed. 2), 38. Let not your shops be infected with anie such goose gyblets or stinking garbadge, as the Iygs of newsmongers.
1627. E. F., Hist. Edw. II. (1680), 66. As with a Jigg of State might catch them naked.
1663. Flagellum, or O. Cromwell (1672), 27. When the Major now perceived the Jig, and how Kitchinman had fooled him, he could have pulled the Hair off his Head.
1688. Bunyan, Jerus. Sinner Saved (1886), 103. By jiggs, and tricks, and quirks, which he helpeth them to.
1735. Dyche, Jig,… an arch merry trick.
1848. Jones, Sk. Trav., 14 (Farmer). I know’d the jig was up.
1861. Thackeray, Four Georges, iv. (1862), 224. Her jigs, and her junketings, and her tears.
1894. Howells, in Harper’s Mag., Feb., 380. The die is cast, the jig is up, the fat’s in the fire, the milk’s spilt.
6. A name variously applied in different trades to mechanical contrivances and simple machines for performing acts or processes, some of which arise directly from uses of JIG v., while in others the sense is little more than ‘dodge,’ ‘device,’ ‘contrivance’: see the quots. spec. b. A machine or contrivance for jigging or dressing ore by shaking it up jerkily in a fluid medium (see JIG v. 5) = JIGGER sb.1 3 b. c. A contrivance of various kinds for catching fish: see quots., and cf. GIG sb.4 d. Coal-mining. A steep tramway on which the loaded trucks as they descend draw up the empty trucks by means of a cable passing round a drum or worked by wheels; also called jinny.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., Jig. 1. A handy tool. The name is applied to various devices, and in many trades small and simple machines are called jigs. In the armorer’s set of tools we find cited,—Drilling-jig. Filing-jig. Milling-jig. Shaving-jig. Tapping-jig.
1881. Greener, Gun, 432. By means of jigs, callipers, and other tools the exact size of the stock and its angle with the barrel is obtained.
b. 1877. Raymond, Statist. Mines & Mining, 424. No principle has yet been discovered which is better adapted to the separation of minerals than the intermittent and impulsive action of some fluid medium on the crushed ore. The best results thus far obtained are from machines known as ‘jigs,’ which employ the above principle.
c. 1858. N. Y. Tribune, 22 July, 3/3 (Bartlett). A long, stout line, at the end of which was a shining spoon-shaped piece of pewter terminated by a large hook. This apparatus he called a jig.
1873. Forest & Stream, 2 Oct., 122. The Shoals are fished with a ‘jig,’ a three-pronged harpoon, fastened to a long wooden handle.
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal., 195. Jigs and drails for the capture of cod,… mackerel jigs formerly extensively used.
1897. R. Kipling, Captains Courageous, 145. Every soul aboard hung over his squid-jig—a piece of lead painted red and armed at the lower end with a circle of pins bent backward like half-opened umbrella ribs.
1897. Outing (U.S.), XXX. 258/1. Harry … leaned over to watch critically the action of the bone jigs, as they played in the water. They darted from side to side without whirling, thus closely imitating a wounded fish.
d. 1866. Daily Tel., 26 Jan., 6/3. The spot where it was ignited was shown to be the first level on the north side near the top of the jig.
1893. Labour Commission Gloss., Jigs, term used in North Staffordshire in the steep measures to describe the road down which the trams are sent, the full trams pulling the empty ones up.
7. Applied ludicrously to a horse, a person, etc. colloq.
1706. [E. Ward], Wooden World Dissected (1708), 54. Up he [a sailor] hoists himself a Trip upon his Jig of a Horse, and sticks as close … as if he was got cross a Yard-arm.
1781. Bentham, Wks. (1843), X. 103. This Lord and Lady Tracton are the queerest jigs you ever saw.
8. Comb., as (senses 1–4) jig-dancer, -given adj., -like adj., -maker; jig-backed a., having a twist in the back; jig-brow (Coal-mining), an underground incline on which a jig or jinny (see 6 d) works, also called jinny-road; jig-chain (see quot.); jig-clog, a clog worn in dancing a jig; jig-mo(u)ld, a mold into which melted lead is poured to form the shank of a jig (sense 6 c); jig-pin, ‘a pin used by miners to hold the turn-beams, and prevent them from turning’ (Webster, 1828). See also JIG-SAW.
1821. Sporting Mag., VIII. 262. It was discovered that, from a wrench, she [a mare] was also *jig-backed.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., *Jig-brow.
1900. Daily News, 11 Jan., 7/3. Then we went to the face, up some of the ‘jig brows,’ which are the roads running off at right angles from this pony track.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., *Jig-chain.… A chain hooked to the back of a skip and running round a post, to prevent its too rapid descent on an inclined plane.
1897. Daily News, 5 Feb., 9/5. A card, on which he was described as ‘the champion clog and *jig dancer.’
1611. B. Jonson, Catiline, Ded. Posterity … shall know, that you dare, in these *jig-given times, to countenance a legitimate Poem.
1835. Court Mag., VI. 24/2. It is a *jig-like sort of tune.
1899. Daily News, 20 April, 5/3. With the exception of a jig-like presto,… the Fantasia is less remarkable for idea or effect than for skilful instrumentation.
1602. Shaks., Ham., III. ii. 131. Oh God, your onely *Iigge-maker: what should a man do, but be merrie.
1633. Ford, Love’s Sacr., II. i. Petrarch was a dunce, Dante a jigmaker.
