jet

plural jets

1. A collimated stream, spurt or flow of liquid or gas from a pressurized container, an engine, etc.

   In the floor of the valley the line passes hills of fantastic shape, like sleeping camels and inverted washbasins, and you can see the beautiful lakes Naivasha and Elementeita; at Eburru jets of steam spurt out of the ground.

   1950 April 28, Timothy H. Cobb, “The Kenya-Uganda Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 265

2. A spout or nozzle for creating a jet of fluid.
3. aeronauticsA type of airplane using jet engines rather than propellers.

   One of the other two nations to operate the F-35B, the United Kingdom, has had US versions of the jet operating off its HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier.

   2018 November 29, Brad Lendon and Zachary Cohen, “Japan preparing to put US-designed stealth jets on an ‘aircraft carrier’”, in CNN

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   “Rather than writing off both jets as a loss … teams made a bold decision in 2022 to remove the nose from AF-27 and put it onto AF-211 to maximize savings and add back an operational aircraft to the fleet,” a report from the F-35 JPO said.

   2025 April 10, Brad Lendon, “‘Frankenjet’ stealth fighter made from two wrecked warplanes joins US Air Force fleet”, in CNN

4. An engine that propels a vehicle using a stream of fluid as propulsion.
   1. A turbine.
   2. A rocket engine.
5. A part of a carburetor that controls the amount of fuel mixed with the air.
6. natural sciencesA narrow cone of hadrons and other particles produced by the hadronization of a quark or gluon.
7. datedDrift; scope; range, as of an argument.
8. datedmediaThe sprue of a type, which is broken from it when the type is cold.

present singular third person jets · participle present jetting · participle past jetted · past jetted

1. intransitiveTo spray out of a container.
2. transitiveTo spray with liquid from a container.

   Farmers may either dip or jet sheep with chemicals.

3. intransitiveTo travel on a jet aircraft or otherwise by jet propulsion
4. intransitiveTo move (running, walking etc.) rapidly around
5. To shoot forward or out; to project; to jut out.

   And last year, at 5:26 a.m. on August 10, a whole mountainside toppled into the tideline of the shrunken Sawyer Glacier, not far from the Alaskan capital, Juneau. The impact jetted a tsunami a staggering 500 meters up the walls of the fjord.

   2026 February 27, Paul Salopek, “Hazard Cascade”, in National Geographic

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   The Town has the outer Branch of the River behind it, and the Harbour before it, jetting into which latter are cloſe Keys for the weighing and receiving of Cuſtomage on Merchandize, and for the meeting and conferring of Merchants and Traders.

   1724, Charles Johnson [pseudonym], “Of Captain Bartho[lomew] Roberts, and His Crew”, in A General History of the Pyrates, […], 2nd edition, London: Printed for, and sold by T. Warner, […], →OCLC, page 214

6. To strut; to walk with a lofty or haughty gait; to be insolent; to obtrude.

   Why, lords, and think you not how dangerous It is to jet upon a prince’s right?

   c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]

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   Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him: how he jets under his advanced plumes!

   c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene v]

7. To jerk; to jolt; to be shaken.

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   1719, Richard Wiseman, Serjeant-Chirurgeon to King Charles II, Eight Chirurgical Treatises, London: B. Tooke et al., 5th edition, Volume 2, Book 5, Chapter 4, p. 78, A Lady was wounded down the whole Length of the Forehead to the Nose […] It happened to her travelling in a Hackney-Coach, upon the jetting whereof she was thrown out of the hinder Seat against a Bar of Iron in the forepart of the Coach.

8. To adjust the fuel to air ratio of a carburetor; to install or adjust a carburetor jet

   The cure is to jet the carburetor excessively rich so that the mixture will be correct at the top end, but this richens the curve throughout the RPM range.

   1970, Bill Fisher, How to Hotrod Volkswagen Engines, page 30

9. intransitiveslangTo leave; depart.

   Gotta jet. See you tomorrow.

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   Pimp prolly jetted before the girl hit the ground good, and if Smoove was still standing on the porch when his brother got downstairs, he'd taken off with him.

   2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 106

1. not comparablePropelled by turbine engines.

   jet airplane

plural jets · alternative obsolete jeat · alternative jess

1. countableuncountablechemistryA hard, black form of coal, sometimes used in jewellery.

   There is also a factitious jeat made of glaſs, in imitation of the mineral jeat.

   1735, [John Barrow], “JEAT”, in Dictionarium Polygraphicum: Or, The Whole Body of Arts Regularly Digested. […], volume II (I–S), London: […] C[harles] Hitch and C[harles] Davis […], and S[amuel] Austen […], →OCLC

2. countableuncountableThe colour of jet coal, deep grey.

comparative jetter · comparative more jet · superlative jettest · superlative most jet

1. Very dark black in colour.

   She was an ash blonde with greenish eyes, beaded lashes, hair waved smoothly back from ears in which large jet buttons glittered.

   1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin, published 2011, page 23

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   All the direct blacks require working in strong baths to give anything like black shades; they all have, more or less, a bluish tone, which can be changed to a jetter shade by the addition of a yellow or green dye in small proportions, which has been done in one of the recipes given above.

   1901, Franklin Beech, The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics: A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student

   Synonyms: jet-black, jetty

plural jets

1. mathematicsan operation that takes a differentiable function f and produces a polynomial, the Taylor polynomial (truncated Taylor series) of f, at each point of its domain.

plural Jets

1. uncountableA town in Oklahoma.
2. countableA male given name.
3. countablerareA female given name.

1. abbreviationacronymAcronym of Journal of Evolution and Technology.