jab

1. 1.

   poke or thrust abruptly

   “he jabbed his finger into her ribs”

   Synonymsprodstabpokedig

   Broaderthrust
2. 2.

   strike or punch with quick and short blows

   Broaderstrike
3. 3.

   stab or pierce

   “he jabbed the piece of meat with his pocket knife”

   Synonymsstab

   Broaderthrust

   Narrowergoad

Other forms of jab

plural

jabs·

past tense or participle

jabbed

present participle

jabbing

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about jab

What does jab mean?

jab means "a sharp hand gesture (resembling a blow)". That is the primary sense; the word has 6 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in jab?

jab has 1 syllable: jab. In IPA it is /ˈdʒæb/.

What is another word for jab?

Close synonyms include jabbing, poke, poking, thrust, thrusting. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is jab a common word?

jab is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.