Word for the day jiggery-pokery

[Josiah]

In fairness to our UK members, a contribution from across the pond.

Definitions for jiggery-pokery

1. Chiefly British. trickery, hocus-pocus; fraud; humbug.
2. Chiefly British. sly, underhanded action.
3. Chiefly British. manipulation: After a little jiggery-pokery, the engine started.

 

[Warrigal]

Great selection Josiah.
Don't you just love the sound of it?

 

[oakapple]

Always liked this word, my young grandson loves me to use it and laughs a lot when he hears it, he must think I made it up.

 

[merlin]

Yes its still used in our family though not sure how mainstream it is nowadays? Its a great word though!!

 

[Josiah]

[FONT=georgia, times new roman, times, serif]The expression "jiggery-pokery" appeared today in the dissenting opinion to the Obamacare decision offered by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia .[/FONT]

 

[Glinda]

I love this expression. I'm going to try to find a way to use it.

 

[jujube]

That ranks up there with "higgly piggly" which my grandmother used to describe just about anything that wasn't done to her standards.

 

[hollydolly]

Yep we still use it in our family but I hear it less and less these days...

It simply means up to something, usually mischievous or downright no good, but nothing too serious..

For example..you might have an o/h who is always in his shed or workshop fiddling around with bit of wood or an engine but you have no idea what ...and when asked by someone else what ''John' is doing..you might say...''oh he's up to some jiggery-pokery''


..or OTH , you might see someone winning consistently at a game, and you know they are cheating but you can't see how...you would say to someone else ''so and so is up to Jiggery -pokery ''

 

[hollydolly]

That ranks up there with "higgly piggly" which my grandmother used to describe just about anything that wasn't done to her standards.

Jujube here in the UK higgeldy -piggeldy means a mess, ...or something not the way it should be ... pictures on the wall for example not hanging straight would be often described as ''all higgledy piggledy ''

 

[RadishRose]

Flying around in a random manner, not adhereing to any set structure-
LOL- my shoes are all in a higgedly-piggledy on my closet floor!

 

[jujube]

Yep, that was her meaning for the term. If it wasn't up to her exacting standards, it was done higgly-piggly.

 

[jujube]

We used to have a grocery chain here in the US (may still as far as I know) called Piggly Wiggly. It always gave me a laugh just saying it. There was a convenience store near my mother's house that was called Hoggly Woggly, but the Piggly Wiggly people made them change their name due to "copyright infringement".