jack-of-all-trades

[ jak-uhv-awl-treydz, jak- ]
See synonyms for jack-of-all-trades on Thesaurus.com
noun,plural jacks-of-all-trades.
  1. a person who is adept at many different kinds of work.

Origin of jack-of-all-trades

1
First recorded in 1610–20

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use jack-of-all-trades in a sentence

  • He was a sort of jack-of-all-trades, and a very useful man in a valley where mechanics were few and transportation difficult.

    Boyhood in Norway | Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
  • Judge Penniman was another who warned him heavily that it was time to quit being a jack-of-all-trades.

    The Wrong Twin | Harry Leon Wilson
  • The surest way of making a man incompetent is to make him jack-of-all-trades, for then he will be master of none.

  • A vision of a happy-go-lucky jack-of-all-trades arose before me.

    Twelve Men | Theodore Dreiser
  • His duties—specialized to one operation—we deemed unfairly light in comparison with our jack-of-all-trades routine.

    Merchantmen-at-Arms | David W. Bone

British Dictionary definitions for jack of all trades

jack of all trades

nounplural jacks of all trades
  1. a person who undertakes many different kinds of work

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012