different between jostle vs smack

English

Etymology

Originally justle (“to have sex with”), formed from Middle English jousten, from the Old French joster (“to joust”), from Latin iuxt? (“next to”), from iung? (“join, connect”), equivalent to joust +? -le.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?d??s.?l/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?d??.s?l/
• Rhymes: -?s?l

Verb

jostle (third-person singular simple present jostles, present participle jostling, simple past and past participle jostled)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To bump into or brush against while in motion; to push aside.
   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, London: J. Johnson, Part 1, Chapter 13, Section 3, pp. 434-435,^[1]

     Besides, various are the paths to power and fame which by accident or choice men pursue, and though they jostle against each other, for men of the same profession are seldom friends, yet there is a much greater number of their fellow-creatures with whom they never clash. But women are very differently situated with respect to each other—for they are all rivals.

   • 1832, Isaac Taylor, Saturday Evening, Chapter 12, p. 214,^[2]

     It is not that there are several systems of movement, physical, intellectual, and moral, which are perpetually jostling each other, or which clash whenever they come in contact, and which move on by the one vanquishing the other. But, on the contrary, each of these economies takes its uninterrupted course, as if there were no other moving within the same space […]

   • 1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, Volume 1, Chapter 3, pp. 370-371,^[3]

     […] when the lord of a Lincolnshire or Shropshire manor appeared in Fleet Street, he was as easily distinguished from the resident population as a Turk or a Lascar. […] Bullies jostled him into the kennel. Hackney coachmen splashed him from head to foot. […]
2. (intransitive) To move through by pushing and shoving.
   • 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, Book One, Chapter 3,^[4]

     Axia and Amory, acquaintances of an hour, jostled behind a waiter to a table at a point of vantage; there they took seats and watched.

3. (transitive) To be close to or in physical contact with.
   • 1859, Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, London: John Murray, Chapter 4, p. 114,^[5]

     […] the advantages of diversification of structure, with the accompanying differences of habit and constitution, determine that the inhabitants, which thus jostle each other most closely, shall, as a general rule, belong to what we call different genera and orders.

4. (intransitive) To contend or vie in order to acquire something.
   • 1819, Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor, in Tales of My Landlord, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, Third Series, Volume 1, Chapter 1, p. 22,^[6]

     Dick, who, in serious earnest, was supposed to have considerable natural talents for his profession, and whose vain and sanguine disposition never permitted him to doubt for a moment of ultimate success, threw himself headlong into the crowd which jostled and struggled for notice and preferment.

   • 1917, Rudyard Kipling, “The Children,” poem accompanying the story “The Honours of War” in A Diversity of Creatures, London: Macmillan, pp. 129-130,^[7]

     […] Our statecraft, our learning

     Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning

     Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour.

5. (dated, slang) To pick or attempt to pick pockets.

Translations

See also

• justle
• joust

Noun

jostle (plural jostles)

1. The act of jostling someone or something; push, shove.
   • 1722, Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders, London: J. Cooke, 1765, p. 241,^[8]

     I had full hold of her Watch, but giving a great Jostle, as if somebody had thrust me against her, and in the Juncture giving the Watch a fair pull, I found it would not come, so I let it go that Moment, and cried out as if I had been killed, that somebody had trod upon my Foot […]

2. The action of a jostling crowd.
   • 1865, Harriet Beecher Stowe (under the pseudonym Christopher Crowfield), The Chimney-Corner, Boston: Ticknor & Field, 1868, Chapter 12, p. 291,^[9]

     For years to come, the average of lone women will be largely increased; and the demand, always great, for some means by which they many provide for themselves, in the rude jostle of the world, will become more urgent and imperative.

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /smæk/
• Rhymes: -æk

Etymology 1

From Middle English smac, smak, smacke, from Old English smæc, smæ?? (“taste, smatch”), from Proto-Germanic *smakkuz (“a taste”), from Proto-Indo-European *smeg?-, *smeg- (“to taste”). Cognate with English dialectal smatch, Scots smak (“scent, smell, taste, flavour”), Saterland Frisian Smoak (“taste”), West Frisian smaak (“taste”), Dutch smaak (“taste”), German Schmack, Geschmack (“taste”), Swedish and Norwegian smak (“taste”), Norwegian smekke . Akin to Old English smæ??an (“to taste, smack”). More at smake, smatch.

Noun

smack (countable and uncountable, plural smacks)

1. A distinct flavor, especially if slight.

   rice pudding with a smack of cinnamon
2. A slight trace of something; a smattering.
   • 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     He was not sailorly, and yet he had a smack of the sea about him too.

3. (slang, uncountable) Heroin.
4. (Northern England) A form of fried potato; a scallop.

Derived terms

• foresmack
• smackless

Translations

Verb

smack (third-person singular simple present smacks, present participle smacking, simple past and past participle smacked)

1. (transitive) To get the flavor of.
   • 1827, Thomas Carlyle (translator), Johann August Musæus, "Melechsala" (1782-86); in German Romance I. 175

     He soon smacked the taste of physic hidden in this sweetness.

2. (intransitive) To indicate or suggest something; used with of.

   Her reckless behavior smacks of pride.
3. (intransitive) To have a particular taste; used with of.
   • 1820-25, Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia

     He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon our quarter-of-a-penny loaf — our crug — moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden piggings, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from.

Derived terms

• smack of

Etymology 2

From Middle Low German smack (Low German Schmacke, Schmaake (“small ship”)) or Dutch smak, perhaps ultimately related to smakken, imitative of the sails' noise.

Noun

smack (plural smacks)

2. A small sailing vessel, commonly rigged as a sloop, used chiefly in the coasting and fishing trade and often called a fishing smack
3. A group of jellyfish.

Translations

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “smack”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Etymology 3

From Middle Dutch smacken, of imitative origin.

Akin to German schmatzen (“eat noisily”), Dutch smakken (“to fling down”), Plautdietsch schmaksen (“to smack the lips”), regional German schmacken, Schmackes (“vigour”) (compare Swedish smak (“slap”), Middle Low German smacken, the first part of Saterland Frisian smakmuulje (“smack”)).

Noun

smack (plural smacks)

1. A sharp blow; a slap. See also: spank.
2. The sound of a loud kiss.
3. A quick, sharp noise, as of the lips when suddenly separated, or of a whip.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

smack (third-person singular simple present smacks, present participle smacking, simple past and past participle smacked)

1. To slap or hit someone.
2. To make a smacking sound.
   • 1832, Banjamin Disraeli, Contarini Fleming

     A horse neighed, and a whip smacked, there was a whistle, and the sound of a cart wheel.

3. (New Zealand) To strike a child (usually on the buttocks) as a form of discipline. (US spank)
4. To wetly separate the lips, making a noise, after tasting something or in expectation of a treat.
   • 1763, Robert Lloyd, “A Familiar Epistle” in St. James Magazine:

     But when, obedient to the mode / Of panegyric, courtly ode / The bard bestrides, his annual hack, / In vain I taste, and sip and smack, / I find no flavour of the Sack.

5. To kiss with a close compression of the lips, so as to make a sound when they separate.

Translations

Adverb

smack (not comparable)

1. As if with a smack or slap; smartly; sharply.

   Right smack bang in the middle.

Derived terms

• smack-dab

Further reading

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.

Anagrams

• macks

Swedish

Noun

smack n

1. (in the phrase "inte ett smack") smidgeon, piece, small bit

See also

• inte ett smack

Anagrams

• macks