jitney

Meaning

Noun

• A small bus or minibus which typically operates service on a fixed route, sometimes scheduled.
• An unlicensed taxi cab.
• A shared-ride taxi.
• A small coin, a nickel.
• Very inexpensive.
• An informal lawn bowling or curling competition in which all players present are randomly drawn into teams.
• A fraudulent arrangement whereby a broker who has direct access to an exchange executes trades on behalf of a broker who does not.

Origin

• 1886, originally for a five-cent US coin (a nickel);1886 Dec 09, Springfield Globe-Republic (now Springfield Daily Republic), Springfield, Ohio, p. 1
  
• Different names for a Five-Cent Piece. … “Do it for a ‘jitney,’” cited in , answer by , 2017-01-12 use for taxis and buses due to these services originally charging five cents as fare, popularized circa 1915.{{cite-newsgroup|author=Stephen Goranson|author-link=http://www.duke.edu/~goranson|email=goranson@duke.edu|title=antedating jitney 1899
• |newsgroup=Ads-l – The American Dialect Society Mailing List|url=http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2009-March/089013.html|date=2009-03-16|accessdate=2019-09-01|text=The Morning Herald, page Page 4, iss. 349, December 16, 1899, Lexington, Kentucky
  
• Election So Quiet This Pair of "Heavy-Enders" Didn't Know it Was on - A Little Tramp Philosophy
  
• "Can't spare de change. Me granmaw died in Sout' Afriky an' I need dis to float me over ter de fun'ral"
  
• {{cite-newsgroup|author=Stephen Goranson|author-link=http://www.duke.edu/~goranson|email=goranson@duke.edu|title=antedating jitney 1899
• {{cite-newsgroup|author=Stephen Goranson|author-link=http://www.duke.edu/~goranson|email=goranson@duke.edu|title=[Ads-l] jitney--etymology and antedating|newsgroup=Ads-l – The American Dialect Society Mailing List|url=http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2016-July/143200.html
• |date=2016-07-02|accessdate=2019-09-01|text=In the May 1, 1915 Literary Digest, Frank H. Vizetelly, "The Lexicographer's Easy Chair" p. 1062, col 2-3 reported:
• "To Troop-Sergeant George Washington Lee we owe the reminder of a little catch popular with the Louisianian French-Speaking negro:
  
• Mettons jetnée danz il trou
  
• Et parcourons sur la rue--
  
• Mettons jetnée--si non vous
  
• Vous promenez à pied nou!
• This may be freely translated:
  
• Put a jitney in the slot
  
• And over the street you ride;
  
• Put a jitney--for if not
  
• You'll foot it on your hide.
  
• ...." [But the whole article is worth reading, including the proposal that the word was "coined by Southern negros for a nickel" and influenced by French jeton or jetton.
• The following newly-reported discovery appears to confirm such an origin by giving--in an African-American newspaper in 1898--a transitional form.
• Illinois Record, Springfield IL, [America's Historical Newspapers] Jan 29, 1898, p. 3 col. 5 "Spingfield South-End Happenings":
• "What little jetney coachman on S. 6th street has such a big head he cant put on the coachman's hat he only wears the coat with brass buttons?"
• Note association with coach as well as (presumably) coin (or token), of little worth.
• The etymology is uncertain; it is believed to originate from Louisiana Creole French jetnée, from French jeton ("token, coin-sized metal disc"), though this is disputed. Evidence for the Louisiana Creole French origin include the geographic distribution (Southeastern US, especially Negro/African-American), and early spelling as gitney, which is common French spelling for the pronunciation.