jenny

plural jennies · alternative Jenny

1. A device for spinning thread from fiber onto multiple spindles (also called spinning jenny).
2. A female creature of certain kinds:
   1. A female donkey.
   2. A female wren.
   3. A female cat.

      Of course all the stock went by road and the house cat—a jenny it was—was put into a basket and driven in the trap along with one or two particular things and the women.

      1934, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], The Bravo of London

   4. AustraliaA female crab.
3. A catmill.
4. In billiards and similar games, a powerful follow shot with plenty of topspin.

   Cream's potting had been extraordinary, extraordinary, I remember, said Goff. I never saw anything like it. We were watching breathless, as he set himself for a long thin jenny, with the black of all balls.

   1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC

present singular third person jennies · participle present jennying · participle past jennied · past jennied · alternative Jenny

1. To wind finished lace onto cards ready for sale.

plural Jennys · plural Jennies · alternative Jenni · alternative Jennie

1. A female given name.

   Jennifer Jo McIntire (with two Jennys now, everyone had followed Matthew’s lead and taken to calling her by her full name) […]

   1994, Gerald N[iels] Lund, chapter 27, in A Season of Joy: A Historical Novel (The Work and the Glory; 5), Salt Lake City, Ut.: Bookcraft, published 1996 (3rd printing), →ISBN, pages 452–453

   2 more examples

   Jenny kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in! Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I'm growing old, but add, Jenny kissed me.

   1837, Leigh Hunt, Jenny Kissed Me

   All this I recollect, but little more, except my mother gave me several beatings for calling my sister "Jenny", which I had learnt to do from others who knew her; but when my mother heard them, she was always very angry, and told them that her child had not such a vulgar name; at which many would laugh, and make a point of calling out "Jenny" to Virginia whenever they passed and saw her at the door.

   1840, Frederick Marryat, chapter IV, in Poor Jack

2. A surname.

   Mrs Wreford Brown died in 1946 and the house passed to Colonel and Mrs Jenny. […] From the Jennys it fell into the hands of developers and from them it passed to Colonel and Mrs Bryant and thence to us.

   2003, Roy Strong, “The Inheritance”, in The Laskett: The Story of a Garden, London: Bantam Books, published 2005, →ISBN, page 25

plural Jennies · alternative Jenni · alternative Jennie

1. UKinformalA Wren (a member of the WRNS).
2. slangA Curtiss JN-4 airplane.
3. Alternative letter-case form of jenny.