jack-of-all-trades
Americannoun
plural
jacks-of-all-tradesnoun
Etymology
Origin of jack-of-all-trades
First recorded in 1610–20
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He could start by cutting the animated sequence in which Mary, her young charges and Bert, a local jack-of-all-trades, jump into one of Bert’s sidewalk chalk paintings.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 14, 2025
He eventually ended up in Florida, where he became a jack-of-all-trades carny and developed a sharp instinct for advance publicity and promotion.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 3, 2025
To make matters even more difficult, Hulls, a painter, adventurer and itinerant jack-of-all-trades, was not really a writer.
From New York Times • Mar. 1, 2024
Rebecca Miller salvaged the modest furnishings from the studio, including a daybed, a pot-belly wood stove and an old metal office chair that her father, a jack-of-all-trades, insisted on fixing rather than replacing.
From Seattle Times • Jul. 2, 2023
Alf was a jack-of-all-trades, carpenter, tinsmith, blacksmith, electrician, plasterer, scissors grinder, and cobbler.
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
