to jump
- verb
- /dʒʌmp/
- She was killed last year when a private rail car jumped the track, so in her memory, Daddy and I painted a picture of a caboose and put it up in front of our boat.
Examples
-
The first engine uncoupled, and the rest of the train jumped the track.
-
The truck jumped the curb and kept coming, half on the street and half on the sidewalk.
Fiction book (1990) -
One day freight train with too much speed jump the tracks.
-
At that speed, it jumps the track, crashes down here, slides into the dirt over there.
-
The freight train suddenly jumped the tracks after hitting a loose rail.
-
As the storm worsened, the old train jumped the track and derailed.
-
The crash occurred when the passenger train jumped the tracks during the heavy snowfall.
Synonyms
Make a train come off the tracks
Idioms
- Informal
To start doing something popular because many others do it, often to get an advantage
- Informal
To suddenly speak angrily and criticize someone for a small mistake
- Slang
To start to get worse after a silly or big change, for example in a TV show
- Informal
Start a difficult task without much preparation or experience
- Offensive
A rude joking way to tell someone to go away without meaning it
- Informal
To join a business or project that is likely to fail even though there are clear risks
Phrasal Verbs
- Informal
Decide quickly about someone or something without enough information
To start a car engine that has a dead battery using another car's battery and cables
Compounds
An athletic event where athletes jump over a horizontal bar without knocking it down
- Specialized
A basketball way where the referee tosses the ball between two players who jump to tap it to a teammate
An act of starting a car with a dead battery using another car's battery and cables
- Specialized
A sudden change between two film shots that makes action or time seem to skip
A track event where an athlete does a hop, a step, then a long jump in one run
- Jargon
A machine in science fiction that lets ships travel instantly between distant stars
- Specialized
A sudden cut between shots in a film that shows time passing or makes the action jump
- Specialized
A sudden change in an electron's energy level when it gains or loses energy
- Specialized
A jump with arms and legs stretched out to the sides like an eagle
Surface Forms
Etymology
Jump when a train 'jumps' the rails uses the image of leaving its proper place in a sudden way, so the train 'jumping' is like it has leaped off the tracks.