jury-rig

verb

ju·​ry-rig ˈju̇r-ē-ˌrig How to pronounce jury-rig (audio)
-ˈrig,
ˈjər-
jury-rigged; jury-rigging; jury-rigs

transitive verb

: to erect, construct, or arrange in a makeshift fashion

Examples of jury-rig in a Sentence

we jury-rigged shelves out of cartons and crates until we could afford real furniture
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
After arriving, Waters pointed a flashlight at a fuse box to jury-rig the generator’s connection. Chris Kenning, USA TODAY, 30 Sep. 2024 But Ukraine’s military engineers have already shown surprising skill in jury-rigging older weapons systems with more modern firepower. Lara Jakes, New York Times, 2 Apr. 2024 Amid those punishing strikes, Ukraine scrambled to stay ahead of mounting damage, with repair crews working around the clock and under fire, desperately jury-rigging old equipment and rationing precious power. Laura King, Los Angeles Times, 3 Oct. 2023 Despite the extreme heat, butchers laid out raw meat on the hoods of their cars, whacking away flies with branches or fly swatters jury-rigged with plastic bags. Valerie Hopkins Emile Ducke, New York Times, 11 Aug. 2023 Observers got a sneak peek of this tactic in Nagorno-Karabakh, where Azerbaijan recently used 1940s-era An-2 biplanes that were jury-rigged to operate remotely. Jason Lyall, Foreign Affairs, 16 Dec. 2020 The big gun is jury-rigged on the back of a flatbed truck. James Levinson, Fox News, 13 Apr. 2023 Taylor plays Inez, a young Harlem fast talker who decides to jury-rig a family by any means necessary. Helena Andrews-Dyer, Washington Post, 31 Mar. 2023 This wasn’t new—the Islamic State had also used drones to drop grenades in Iraq—but Ukraine started doing this on a professional, unprecedented scale, says Zwijnenburg, moving from jury-rigging devices to drop hand grenades to 3D-printing parts that turn ordinary commercial drones into weapons. WIRED, 24 Feb. 2023

Word History

Etymology

jury entry 3

First Known Use

1788, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of jury-rig was in 1788

Dictionary Entries Near jury-rig

Cite this Entry

“Jury-rig.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jury-rig. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!