[A female personal name, pet-form or familiar equivalent of Janet (or, by confusion with Jinny or Jeanie, of Jane), and so serving as a feminine of Jack. Hence, like Jack, used as a feminine prefix, and as the name of machines.]
I. 1. The female name: hence, sometimes applied derisively to a man who concerns himself with purely feminine matters.
Mod. Sc. ‘He is a regular jenny.’
2. Used as a prefix to denote a female animal, as jenny-ass, and esp. in names of birds, as jenny-hooper, -howlet, and sometimes loosely applied without reference to sex.
1600. Surflet, Countrie Farm, I. xxii. 122. To preuent the danger of owles and iennye [printed ienupe, ed. 1616 Iennie] whuppers.
1632. Brome, North. Lasse, III. ii. Wks. 1873, III. 53. I should not be so fond to mistake a Jennie Howlet for a Tassel Gentle.
1828. Craven Dial., Jinny-Hullet, an owl.
1847–78. Halliwell, Jenny-Hooker, an owl. North. It is also called a Jenny-howlet.
1885. Swainson, Prov. Names Birds, 34. Blue Titmouse … Jenny tit (Suffolk).
b. Short for jenny ass, jenny wren.
1808. E. S. Barrett, Miss-led General (ed. 2), 24. A jackass, and his jenny, will do well enough for a lord and lady.
1881. Leicestersh. Gloss., Jenny and Jenny-wren, the wren.
1885. Swainson, Prov. Names Birds, 35. Wren…. Familiar names. Kitty, Jenny (General).
3. Creeping Jenny, the plant Lysimachia Nummularia or Moneywort.
1882. Garden, 12 Aug., 138/2. The common Moneywort, or Creeping Jenny, as it is called.
1883. Pall Mall Gaz., 1 Oct., 3/2. Vases … with fuchsia centres and pendent border of creeping jenny.
II. In names of machinery, etc.
4. Short for SPINNING-JENNY.
[1789. Trans. Soc. Arts, I. 34. The construction of this Kind of Machine, called a Spinning Jenny.]
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 440. The filling of the cotton goods is spun with jennies. Ibid., 386. The operation of the jenny is nearly the same as the roving billy.
1859. Smiles, Self-Help, 32. The work-people … made a desperate effort to destroy all the jennies; and a mob rose and scoured the country round Blackburn, demolishing the machines wherever they could find them.
5. A locomotive crane that runs backwards and forwards, and is used for moving heavy weights.
1861. Ann. Reg., 17. The jenny, which is three or four tons in weight, fell on the top of the boiler.
1878. F. S. Williams, Midl. Railw., 508. A jenny, or crane, is placed on a movable platform extending from one stage to the other.
6. A pair of compasses, having the point of one leg bent inwards, so as to be applied to an edge at right angles to the surface on which the other leg is fixed. Also called oddlegs or moffs.
Mod. Price-list Engineers’ and Joiners’ Tools.
7. Billiards. Name of a particular stroke.
1856. Crawley, Billiards (1859), 17. The Jenny … is made by a losing hazard into the middle pocket, from a ball lying near to the cushion.
1873. Bennett & ‘Cavendish,’ Billiards, 149. Strokes … sometimes called Jennys.
1899. Daily News, 31 March, 3/3. He then scored two brilliant jennies—short and long—and after another loser gave a safety miss.
8. Comb., as jenny-minder, -spinning; Jenny-bank, Jenny-gates (see quots.); Jenny-long-legs Sc., a daddy-long-legs; Jenny-mony-feet Sc., a centipede (Jam.).
1852. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XIII. II. 275. The cross-beam in the outhouses was called the *jenny-bank, from its being the usual domicile of the barn-owl.
1829. Glover’s Hist. Derby, I. 58. Cross-gates or *jenny-gates are then driven, which are passages not only giving admission to the pure air, but serving for different roads to the works.
1899. Daily News, 9 Jan., 7/2. Boltmaker…. *Jenny-minder…. Yeast-seller.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 385. The carding-engine used in *jenny-spinning.
