JACK OF ALL TRADES, n.  Mistress of all.

JANJIWEED, n.  An army that by murder empties the plains of Sudan, by fire bares the desert and by rape insures a generation of half-demons to supply the future with pious leadership.

JEALOUS, adj.  Resentful of the merely envious.

JEALOUSY, n.  The inspiration to get out of bed in the evening.  Mother to the muses.

JEEP, n.  A horseless kick.

JEER, v.i., v.t.  To sympathize without empathy.

JEKYLL, DR., n.  A real scientist.

JELLIFY, v.t. To soften, as with a call to arms.

JELLY, n.  The sole substance liberals and conservatives can agree on the nature of and purpose, each using it to think with.

JENNER, EDWARD, n.  The discoverer of the vaccine, but not one against the pharmaceutical advertizement.

JEOPARDIZE, n.  To encourage.

JEOPARDY, n. The condition afflicting the uncouched.

JEREMIAD, n. Discourse.

JERUSALEM, n. A holy city of three faiths and countless sorrows.

JESTER, n.  The acrobat in a chivalrous court or a wordsmith in an Instant-Message regime.

JIBE, v.  To agree, as a remembered prediction with a measured result.

JIFFY, n.  In a slumbering instant.

JIG, n.  The Irish allocation of sobriety.

JIGGER, n.  Too little. 

JIGGLE, v.i.  To express laterally rather than literally.

JIGGLY, adj.  Articulate.

JIGSAW PUZZLE, n.  A child’s toy, meant to stimulate visual recognition, spatial interpretation and delegation.

JIHAD, n.  The Muslim equivalent of a Christian crusade or a Jewish negotiation.  A defensive war against the indifferent.

JILT, v.t.  To revoke future complaints.

JIM CROW, n.  The system under which black Americans were deprived of opportunity, the vote, security which was eventually struck by federal courts in favor of the right to be made fools of.

JIM-DANDY, n.  A person or thing that delights, such as the first of several jokes or a policeman arresting the neighbor.

JINGLE, n.  The call to charity preceding Christmas.

JINGO, n.  A traitor on camera.

JINX, n.  A period of likely results.

JIVE, n.  Ethnic yammer.

JIVE, v.  To speak colloquially, in so far as standard grammatical constructions may not be observed and the vocabulary is descriptive, often onomotpoetic, but damn.

JOBBERY, n.  Politics.

JOCKEY, v.i.  To position oneself in racing for the lead, in commerce for the bet and in politics to denounce the horse.

JOUST, v.i.  To seek envy at lance point.

JOVIAL, adj.  Having an unnaturally good nature.

A jovial man was Jim,

Unaware of his neighbors’ knowledge of him.

He offered the warmest of greetings

To children and clergy at the park or in meetings.

We smile at the stories he told,

And was still gladly telling when they opened the scaffold.

-Jodhpur Lóvak

JOVE, n.  Chief god of the Roman Pantheon, lord of lightning.  Wisdom was born when he cracked his skull.

JOWL, n.  The epicure’s wisdom tooth.

JOY, n.  The sensation of having avoided detection.  Often wished for those we would like to detect less.

JOYOUS, adj.  Intolerable.

JOYFUL, adj.  Insufferable.  Fulsome.

JOYSTICK, n.  A male font for baptism by immersion.

JUBILANT, adj.  Profoundly affected by a neighbor’s disgrace.

JUBILEE, n.  A commemorative celebration of forgetfulness.

JUDAS, n.  Someone who betrays the glorious on behalf of the paperless.

JUDAS GOAT, n.  The social worker of the barnyard.

JUDGE, n.  The wearer of the purse that makes a kangaroo court or the baffles that make justice blind.

JUDGMENTAL, adj.  Inattentive.

JUG, n.  A vessel for yesterday’s grape and tomorrow’s seed.

JUGGERNAUT, n.  A charisma so compelling that those affected will organize their own death by pulping.  The Hindu equivalent of a television.

JUGGLE, v.i.  To remember the day’s activities for a suspicious audience.

JUGULAR, n.  An anatomical provocation.

JURISPRUDENCE, n.  The system by which wrongdoers become convicts or judges.

JURY, n.  A panel of peers empowered to determine guilt and fate by A.C. Nielsen Co.

JUSTICE, n.  The name we give the process by which a priceless painting is lost in a tragic disaster, is taken by a fatal tornado and wafts undamaged to the ground at our feet; or a foreign misfortune.