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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Jumping jack

Jumping jack \Jump"ing jack`\

  1. A toy figure of a man, jointed and made to jump or dance by means of strings or sticks attached to it.

  2. A calisthenic exercise in which a person starts in a standing position with both feet together and with the arms at the sides, then leaps into the air while moving the arms outward and upward so that the hands touch above the head, and then returns to the original position by reversing the motion of legs and hands.

Wiktionary
jumping jack

n. 1 A physical exercise performed by jumping to a position with the legs spread wide and the hands touching overhead and then returning to a position with the foot together and the arms at the sides. 2 (context archaic English) A toy figure of a man, jointed and made to jump or dance by means of strings.

WordNet
jumping jack

n. plaything consisting of a toy figure with movable joints that can be made to dance by pulling strings

Wikipedia
Jumping jack

__NOTOC__ A jumping jack (Canada & US) or star jump (UK and other Commonwealth nations), also called side-straddle hop in the US military, is a physical jumping exercise performed by jumping to a position with the legs spread wide and the hands touching overhead, sometimes in a clap, and then returning to a position with the feet together and the arms at the sides. The jumping jack name comes from the traditional toy of the same name, while "star jump" refers to the person's appearance with legs and arms spread.

The jumping jack is the official state exercise of Missouri, USA as of July 2014.

Jumping jack (disambiguation)

Jumping jack may refer to:

  • Jumping Jack, a physical exercise
  • Jumping jack (toy), a toy with an attached string
  • Jumping Jack (video game), 1983, also released as Leggit!
  • Jumping Jack (arcade game), 1984, released by Universal Entertainment Corporation
  • Jack jumper ant, a variety of ant native to Australia
  • Jumping jack compactor, a type of trench compactor
  • Jumping Jack, a type of firework
  • Jumping Jack Jones, an American baseball player in the 1880s known for his distinctive, jumping delivery
  • Jumping Jacks, a 1952 Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy
Jumping jack (toy)

The jumping-jack is a toy whose origins date back thousands of years. The jointed jumping-jack figure is a cross between a puppet and a paper doll. The figures are generally made from wood and their limbs are jointed and tied to a pull string. When the string is pulled and released, the arms and legs move up and down.

Jumping Jack (video game)
"Leggit" redirects here. For the similar word "legit", see Legitimacy (disambiguation).

Jumping Jack is a platform game created by Albert Ball and Stuart C. Ball for the ZX Spectrum 16K in 1983. It was available for the Atari 8-bit computers and Dragon 32 under the name Leggit!. In these versions, Jack was renamed Leaping Lenny.

Each level consists of a set of eight wraparound floors, across which holes scroll; when these holes reach the side of the screen, they move up or down to the next floor, depending on if they're scrolling to the left or right, respectively. The goal in each level is to reach the top, by jumping through the holes; however, each time Jack jumps, a new hole is formed on a randomly chosen floor. Falling though a hole or miscalculating a jump and hitting the ceiling temporarily stuns him and leaves him vulnerable to a hole scrolling underneath him; if he falls all the way to the bottom of the level, he loses a life. Completing a level reveals a verse from the "Ballad of Jumping Jack"; the next level features an extra hole at the start and from the second level onward, monsters appear which stun Jack in the same way as a fall or mistimed jump.

A totally unrelated arcade game called Jumping Jack was produced by Universal in 1984.

Usage examples of "jumping jack".

The Astronomer was saving Fortunato for last, so jumping Jack Flash and Peregrine were probably next on the list.

He popped to his feet like a jumping jack, a stooped, undernourished, middle-aged man with the damnedest expression of baffled indignation on his face.