jerkwater
noun/ˈd͡ʒɚk.wɔ.tɚ/US
Etymology
From jerk (“to move with a sudden movement”) + water. Refers to the need to supply the boilers of steam trains with water. In rural areas and small towns with no water tower, where the train did not stop, this was done by scooping ("jerking") water from a track pan. First appears c. 1852, in the Miami County Sentinel (Peru, Indiana).
Definitions
A train on a branch line.
- […] by bailing from near streams with buckets, (the brake-man called this operation jerking water) and from this the road gets its name of jerkwater road.
A jerkwater town.
Of an inhabited place, small, insignificant, and backward.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for jerkwater. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA