Jump-start

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The process or result of jump-starting a motor vehicle.

    "I left my headlights on all night. Could you give me a jump-start?"

  2. 2
    starting an automobile engine that has a weak battery by means of jumper cables to another car wordnet
  3. 3
    A false start.
Verb
  1. 1
    To start a motor vehicle with a discharged ("dead") battery by connecting it with jumper cables to an alternate source of electrical current, generally either the charged battery of another vehicle or a purpose-made device ("hotshot"). transitive
  2. 2
    start or re-start vigorously wordnet
  3. 3
    To reactivate or rejuvenate. figuratively, transitive

    "Giving a really good speech at the convention could jump-start her political career."

  4. 4
    start (a car engine whose battery is dead) by connecting it to another car's battery wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
boostfalse startflierflyerjumpjumped start

Example

More examples

"The economy is in dire need of a jump-start."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.