jack n1, often cap
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25 also jack-worm: = doodlebug n 2. Sth
1871 Willet Wonders Insect Life 8 GA, The chimney sweeps who cleaned the chimneys of soot when I was a boy managed to worm themselves up and down the chimneys . . pretty much in the same way as our ‘jack worm,’ as I think the children call him. 1879 Torch-Light (Oxford NC) 10 June [2]/4, The boys use the stem of it [=bluegrass] to fish for jack-worms. The jack-worm lives in a smooth, round, deep hole, about a quarter of an inch in diameter. At least he did when I was a boy. 1883 St. Louis Post–Dispatch (MO) 16 Mar 7/6 cGA, Among their numerous accomplishments is the sagacity displayed in catching jack worms. The fowls have been taught to take pine straws in their bills, run them in the holes where the worms live, and then keep very quiet until the jacks move the straws. When this is done, the chickens . . snatch the straws from the holes, and, nine times out of ten, they catch the jacks. 1908 DN 3.323 eAL, wGA, Jack. . . A sort of worm which lives in the earth in a small bored hole. Children amuse themselves fishing for jacks. The worms will seize a straw poked into their holes, and they may be jerked out as a fish. Also called jack-worm. c1960 Mathews Coll. AL (as of c1900), We fished for “jacks.” 2011 in 2019 DARE File—Internet eTX, One way I know to catch a jack worm / Let him push the straw with his snout / That’s when the straw is in his pinchers / Now just jerk real fast and he’s out.
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