What Do the Terms "One-Horse" and "Jerkwater" Mean and How Did the Words Originate?

In the early days of the railroad, huge tanks were built along the routes where the steam engines could stop and refill by pulling, or jerking, a spout into place, allowing the water to flow from the tank to the engine.

The tiny community that grew up around the tank was called a “jerkwater” town.

A “one-horse” town was so small, one horse could do all the work and transportation for the entire community, so it was about the size of a jerkwater town.

what do the terms one horse and jerkwater mean and how did the words originate

Where does the word “jerkwater” originate and What does jerkwater mean? Strongly divergent views appeared in 1945 in relating the origin of the term jerkwater. James L. Marshall in Santa Fe, the Railroad That Built an Empire says that that railroad was so named…
What Do the Terms “Left-Wing” and “Right-Wing” Mean in Politics and How Did the Terms Originate? Over two hundred years ago, King Louis XVI of France was forced to convene a form of parliament for the first time in more than a century. At the assembly, the more radical…
How Did the Tennis Terms “Seeded” and “Love” Originate and What Do the Words Mean? Tennis was popularized by the French nobility, and because a zero looked like an egg that's what they called it. Egg in French is "l'oeuf", which became love in English. The seeding or…
How Did the Words “Uptown” and “Downtown” Originate and What Do the Terms Mean? When New York City was only a town, its growth was restricted by the shape of Manhattan Island. The word uptown first appeared in about 1830 and was used to describe the residential…
Where does the term “dark horse” come from and What does dark horse mean? Originally the term "dark horse" was a racing term for a horse about which nothing was known; its abilities had been kept "in the dark", secret, that is, until it appeared on the…
Where does the expression “dead horse” come from and What does dead horse mean? Undoubtedly there was once a pathetic story about a poor man who, painfully, saved enough money to make a down payment on a horse that he greatly desired to help him till his…

What Do the Terms “One-Horse” and “Jerkwater” Mean and How Did the Words Originate?

Related Posts

About Karen Hill