jerkwater, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

jerkwater adj.

[railroad use, as jerkwater railroad, a small remote rural location where trains didn’t stop except to pick up water. These places had a trackside water tower and a trough from which a train could scoop or jerk water from between the tracks without actually stopping. An alternative ety., based on earlier railroad practice, suggests that the crew had actually to leave the train and jerk the water in buckets from local wells, then run with it to the waiting locomotive. A further suggestion cites buckets that were attached to the locomotive by a leather strap and that were used to jerk the water from streams running alongside the track]

1. (US) small-time, second-rate, mediocre.

1890		Decatur Morning Rev. (IL) 9 Jan. 2/1: He is a jerkwater politician [...] who has an uncontrollable inclination to win bread by constantly crying out the very superior excellence of his particular brand of patriotism.
1900		Conservative (Nebraska City, NE) 19 July 4/3: Occasionally I get on a little jerkwater road that is not in the combination.
1905		J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:i 84: jerkwater railroad / (train), n. Insignificant branch railway; Train on a branch railway.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 96: Never before had this crack train stopped at the ‘jerkwater’ community.
1918		‘Max Brand’ ‘Above the Law’ in Coll. Stories (1994) 20: Men, is Snider Gulch going to be left behind by a jerk-water shanty village like Three Rivers?
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 248: After bumming a stage ride, beating my way over a jerkwater branch road [...] I got into one of the prosperous camps.
1936		(con. 1920s) Dos Passos Big Money in USA (1966) 899: Joe’s a little over cautious sometimes . . . he wants to have a jerkwater plant to run himself and hand down to his grandchildren.
1941		D.L. Bolinger ‘Among the New Words’ in AS XVI:4 309: siwash n. A jerkwater college.
1943		R.L. Bellem ‘Dead Man’s Shakedown’ in Dan Turner Detective Mar. 🌐 He died suddenly and somewhat mysteriously in a jerkwater Alabama hamlet.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 49: One point in a jerkwater game may mean millions to the operators.
1965		J. Thompson Texas by the Tail (1994) 27: Born and raised in a jerkwater community.
1968		‘Richard Hooker’ MAS*H (2004) 156: He went to some jerkwater colored college.
1971		J.D. Horan Blue Messiah 162: Some jerkwater college near the Canadian border.

2. (US) stupid, foolish.

1953		W. Burroughs letter 8 July in Harris (1993) 179: There is something intentional in this, a determination to be stupid and jerkwater.
1987		W.T. Vollmann You Bright and Risen Angels (1988) 206: You jerkwater walleye that thinks you’re a swimming pool tough.

In compounds

jerkwater town (n.) (also jerk, jerkwater)

(US) a small, insignificant town.

1900		J. London ‘Jack London in Boston’ in Boston Eve. Post 26 May 32: I know the old jerk like a book, and I’ll put you wise.
1905		N.Y. Tribune 30 July 9/3: The train stopped that morning in a little jerkwater town.
1913		S.F. Call 20 July 7/3: Waiting in freezing depots in jerk-water towns for trains that were seven hours late.
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 128: When we would come to some jerk-water town, we were taken to the local jail and allowed to sleep in the jail-yard.
1936		K. Mackenzie Living Rough 236: It would be just our hard luck to have some bull or brakie kick us off in some jerk-water town!
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 582: In the old days a small town used to be a tank or a jerkwater, but now it is a filling-station.
1954		(con. 1920s–30s) J.O. Killens Youngblood (1956) 147: What the hell am I doing in this jerkwater town?
1970		San Diego Sailor blurb for Rub the Man Down n.p.: [back cover] Homosexuals can exist and find love, even in a jerk-water Indiana town.
1982		R.M. Brown Southern Discomfort (1983) 94: ‘Do you ever get homesick, Karel?’ ‘No; do you?’ ‘For that jerkwater town in eastern Alabama? I’d have to be nuts to go back there.’.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 306: Jakeville, Jayville, jerkwater town.
1997		J. Logan Slocum and the Town Boss 9: I don’t give a damn who’s mayor of this jerkwater town.
2005		D. Johnson Biting the Dust 122: Robert Wood wasn’t just some factory worker in a jerkwater town anymore.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Coorparoo Blues [ebook] [US speaker] ‘[E]verybody’s got his hand out in this jerkwater town’ [i.e. Brisbane].