sb. Forms: 7– J. with a (the) l., 8 o’, -a-, of l.; 7–8 lanthorn, 8– lantern; 8– Jack-lantern, -horn.
† 1. A man with a lantern; a night watchman.
1663. Stapleton, Slighted Maid, III. 48. I am an Evening dark as Night, Jack-with-the-Lantern, bring a Light.
1698–1700. E. Ward, Lond. Spy, II. (1709), 32. Each Parochial Jack-a-Lanthorn was Croaking about Streets the Hour of Eleven.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Lett. fr. Dead, Wks. 1760, II. 195. Who should come by before I could get up again, but the constable going his rounds, who quickly made me centre of a circle of jack of lanthorns.
2. An ignis fatuus or will-o’-the-wisp; = Friar’s lantern (FRIAR sb. 9 b); fig. something misleading or elusive.
1673. Ray, Journ. Low C., 410. Those reputed Meteors … known in England by the conceited names of Jack with a Lanthorn, and Will with a Wisp.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, XII. xii. Partridge … firmly believed … that this light was a Jack with a lantern, or somewhat more mischievous.
1750. S. Hales, Earthquakes, 10. Plenty of inflammable sulphureous Matter in the Air, such as Ignes fatui, or Jack-a-Lanterns.
1775. Sheridan, Rivals, III. iv. I have followed Cupid’s Jack-a-lantern, and find myself in a quagmire.
1862. H. Marryat, Year in Sweden, II. 67. As a mist rises, Jack-o’-lantern flits his pale light over the swamp.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind., 5. Supplying so many more jack-o’-lanterns to the future historian.
attrib. 1750–1. Student, II. 352. It … is … of a mere Jack-lanthorn nature, neither here nor there.
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., 293. The characters in this act frisk about, here, there, and everywhere, as teasingly as the Jack o’Lantern lights which mischievous boys … throw with a looking-glass on the faces of their opposite neighbours.
3. A lantern made of the rind of a large turnip or a pumpkin, in which holes are cut to represent eyes, nose and mouth; a turnip- or (in U.S.) pumpkin-lantern. North Eng., Sc. and U.S.
Hence Jack-o’-lantern v. intr. (nonce-wd.), to play or move erratically like a will-o’-the-wisp.
1891. G. Meredith, One of our Conq., I. iv. 52. His Puckish fancy jack-o’-lanterning over it.
Jack-o-leg: see JOCKTELEG. Jack-o’-lent: see JACK-A-LENT. Jackonet: see JACONET.
