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jackpot

nounverbnouncommon in dialogue

  • //ˈd͡ʒækpɒt//

A money prize pool which accumulates until the conditions are met for it to be won.

noun

  1. 1

    A money prize pool which accumulates until the conditions are met for it to be won.

    If no player picks all six numbers correctly, the jackpot is rolled over and added to the next week's jackpot; several weeks of rollovers can build up jackpots up to $350 million or more.

  2. 2

    A large cash prize or money.

  3. 3

    An unexpected windfall or reward.

  4. 4

    A concentration of surface wood or fuel.

    a juniper jackpot

  5. 5

    A large accumulated point bonus, originally awarded after a long set of actions but now often easily available in multiball modes.

  6. 6

    A ball game in which a thrower calls out a point value and whether the ball must be caught "alive" (in the air) or "dead" (having touched the ground), and a group of catchers compete to catch the ball.

    As a little girl, I was something of a tomboy. I played jackpot in the mud at recess, and my Christmas wish lists consisted of baseball mitts and remote controlled cars.

Etymology

Attested as jack-pot (“big prize”), 1944; from sense "slot machine" (1932), from obsolete poker sense (1881) "antes that begin when no player has a pair of jacks or better"; from jack (“playing card”) + pot.

verb

  1. 1

    Of a slot machine, to issue a jackpot.

    I went into the Las Vegas Casino and played $20 in a nickel slot, and it jackpotted for $300.

    She sought out the machines along the aisles, the ones most frequently used, stuffed with tokens, especially likely to jackpot.

  2. 2

    To fraudulently exploit an automatic teller machine so that it dispenses cash that has not been withdrawn from an account.

noun

  1. 1

    A difficult situation.

    and if you are not next to the ways and customs, the first thing you know you are in a jackpot so big four one spots would not be openers. I don't know what that last expression means, but I heard a fellow use it, and he was talking about a fellow that was in a very bad fix.

    "I'm in a jackpot." Sympathy shone from those friendly eyes at once. "It's shore too bad for a lady to be in a jackpot," he answered me earnestly.

    You're already in a jackpot, he said. I'm tryin to get you out of it.

  2. 2

    A jumble of felled timber.

Etymology

Unknown. Criminal slang usage as "trouble, especially an arrest" attested 1902.

Forms

plural
jackpots
past tense
jackpotted
past participle
jackpotted
present participle
jackpotting
third person singular
jackpots
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).