24 February 2021
[Update 25 February 2021: added mention of the strikebreaker sense.]
A jackleg is a professional, especially a lawyer or preacher, who is an imposter or otherwise untrained or dishonest. As an adjective it can refer to anything that is done hastily or unskillfully. The term in an Americanism, found predominantly in the South and South Midland regions.
Jackleg is probably an alteration of an older British slang term for a swindler or dishonest person: blackleg. The metaphor underlying blackleg is lost, but the term appears first in horseracing circles as a term for a dishonest bettor or bookmaker. As for jackleg, the switch to jack is probably from the use of the name Jack as a generic term for a man (Cf. jackknife).
The adjective black-legged appears in October 1761 in a description of an upset in a horse race in the St. James Chronicle, or the British Evening Post:
On Thursday the Fifty Pounds for Five and Six-year-olds, and Aged Horses, was won by
Mr Hillier’s chestnut Mare, Fair Rachel, 2 2 1 1
Mr. Wanley’s brown Horse, 1 3 3 2
Lord Craven’s dun Horse, Valiant, 3 1 2 3This Day’s Sport, as well as Tuesdays, afforded great Diversion to the Ignorant, whilst the Black-legged Gentry went off with heavier Hearts than Purses.—Rachael was backed with Odds against the Field before starting; but being beat in the first Heat by Mr. Wanley, after a strong Contest, and Lord Craven’s Horse having lain by, the Bets changed, and Valiant was taken Even-Money against the Field. The Second Heat was won by his Lordship, upon which the Odds rose till they were Eight to One: But in the Third Heat the dun Horse sunk to Rachael; and in the Fourth the Contest was very strong between the Mare and Mr. Wanley’s Horse, whom she beat only by a length.
The noun blackleg, referring to an unscrupulous bookmaker, makes its appearance a few years later in a 17 June 1767 letter to the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser by a man calling himself Tim Pennyless (obviously not his real name), who describes how the gamblers took advantage of his inexperience at the track:
I was in the company with three young fellows, old acquaintances of mine, who invited me to the races at Epsom (a diversion, as by mistake it is called) I never had seen. They dressed it up in so many charms to me, that the most romantic idea could hardly equal; nay, they assured me, it was one of the great doors of the world to let me into public notice, and as a tradesman, it was the best introduction I could meet with, for I should have the opportunity of mingling with the Nobility, and of being known to them, as any man had a right to make a bett, even Buckhorse himself, could, with propriety and decency, take or lay the odds with Lord B. Lord M. Sir C. B. &c. And to enable myself to better parade the course, they advised me to purchase a genteel gelding, and that if I took with me a cool hundred, they did not doubt, but by their management, I should multiply it to three or four hundred pounds, for that they were intimate with some of those, who, in the modern turf-language, are called Deep Ones, alias Knowing Ones, alias Black Legs, or in the open intelligent language of fair truth, Vagabonds, Imposters, and Thieves.
In the mid nineteenth century in Britain, blackleg took on the more specific meaning of a strikebreaker, a scab. The shift from a swindler to a strikebreaker is a natural one. That sense drove the swindler sense out of use in Britain, although the strikebreaker sense has not taken hold in North America.
Speaking of North America, jackleg is recorded in a 20 May 1822 letter to the Herald of the Valley of Fincastle, Virginia, a town at the southern end of the Shenandoah Valley. The letter is simply wonderful. It appears to be a response to some incident where someone took offense to being called a jackleg, and it is in the style of a medieval dream vision drawing upon the guided tours of the underworld in Virgil’s Aeneid and Dante’s Inferno:
I rode out the other evening, and finding myself much fatigued, I reclined under the shade of a large oak;—I fell into the following train of reflection: The prophet Joel, had answered me in the spirit of forgiveness and christian fellowship, stating that if he had known there was a real jack-legged lawyer present, when he used the expression, he never would have wounded his feelings with the hateful appellation.
My imagination became weary with the subject; I was seized with a deep sleep. During my slumbers, I was conducted by a Genius, into the unknown regions, after a long journey we came to the river Styx; Charon was in an unusual good humor, and ferried us over without receiving any compensation. We at length arrived at the fields of Tartarus, I beheld a multitude of people in the most anxious suspense. I saw epicures, with the keenest appetites, unsatisfied; hypocrites without the least possibility of lying and slandering their neighbors; and among the rest I saw a growing host, wringing their hands and crying “repent, repent, and be converted;” the sight harrowed up my soul with horror, I was for a moment dumb, as soon as I recovered strength to speak, I asked my guide, who are those in such agonizing distress? she immediately replied, they are jacklegged Methodist preachers who came into the service of the Lord uncalled for; they carry in one hand the book of life, and in the other the dagger of death; the moment you trust them, they shed the hearts blood of confiding adoration.
I saw Joel on his trial, in the court of Radamanthus. I had a great deal of conversation with the officers of the court; it was generally supposed, that from the credibility of the witnesses, deduced against him, he would be convicted and sentenced to class himself among the jack legs. I really sympathized with him, in his deplorable situation, until I reflected that a man, who (to use his own words) jacks himself about the tabernacles of the Lord, preaching repentance to the people, ought to do it with an honest heart, and a clear conscience. This same Joel seemed to be religious and bridled not his tongue, but he deceived his own heart.
They don’t write newspapers like they used to.
Both blackleg and jackleg remain in current use.
Sources:
“Burford Races, Oxfordshire.” St. James Chronicle, or the British Evening Post (London). 15 October–17 October 1761, 5. Gale Primary Sources: Burney Newspapers Collection.
Dictionary of American Regional English, 2013, s.v. jackleg, adj.
The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser (London), 17 June 1767, 4. Gale Primary Sources: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2021, s.v. jackleg, adj., jackleg, n.
Herald of the Valley (Fincastle, Virginia), 20 May 1822, 3. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2018, s.v. jackleg, adj. and n., jack-legged, adj.; September 2011, s.v. blackleg, n., black-legged, adj.