jockey

Etymology

The word is by origin a diminutive of jock, the Northern English or Scots colloquial equivalent of the first name John, which is also used generically for "boy" or "fellow" (compare Jack, Dick), at least since 1529. A familiar instance of the use of the word as a name is in "Jockey of Norfolk" in Shakespeare's Richard III. v. 3, 304. Equivalent to jock + -ey. In the 16th and 17th centuries the word was applied to horse-dealers, postilions, itinerant minstrels and vagabonds, and thus frequently bore the meaning of a cunning trickster, a "sharp", whence the verb to jockey, "to outwit" or "to do" a person out of something. The current meaning of a person who rides a horse in races was first seen in 1670.

noun

1. One who rides racehorses competitively.
2. That part of a variable resistor or potentiometer that rides over the resistance wire
3. (in combination) An operator of some machinery or apparatus.
4. (dated) A dealer in horses; a horse trader.
   1841, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Warren Hastings
5. The selling of an unsound horse for a sound price is regarded by a Yorkshire jockey
6. (dated) A cheat; one given to sharp practice in trade.
7. (UK, crime, slang) A prostitute's client.
8. (Ireland, crime, slang) A rapist.

verb

1. To ride (a horse) in a race.
2. To jostle by riding against.
   They were jockeying for position toward the end of the race.
3. To maneuver (something) by skill for one's advantage.
4. To cheat or trick.