JAY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Jay mean? 

• JAY (noun)
  The noun JAY has 2 senses:

1. United States diplomat and jurist who negotiated peace treaties with Britain and served as the first chief justice of the United States Supreme Court (1745-1829)

2. crested largely blue bird

  Familiarity information: JAY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• JAY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

United States diplomat and jurist who negotiated peace treaties with Britain and served as the first chief justice of the United States Supreme Court (1745-1829)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

Jay; John Jay

Instance hypernyms:

chief justice (the judge who presides over a supreme court)

diplomat; diplomatist (an official engaged in international negotiations)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Crested largely blue bird

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("jay" is a kind of...):

corvine bird (birds of the crow family)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "jay"):

Old World jay (a European jay)

New World jay (a North American jay)

camp robber; Canada jay; gray jay; grey jay; Perisoreus canadensis; whisker jack (a jay of northern North America with black-capped head and no crest; noted for boldness in thievery)

Holonyms ("jay" is a member of...):

Garrulinae; subfamily Garrulinae (subfamily of the crow family: jays)

 Context examples 

Chattering jays and loud wood-pigeons flapped thickly overhead, while ever and anon the measured tapping of Nature's carpenter, the great green woodpecker, sounded from each wayside grove.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And then you won't know me, sir; and I shall not be your Jane Eyre any longer, but an ape in a harlequin's jacket—a jay in borrowed plumes.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

That’s God’s truth, gentlemen, every word of it, and I heard no more about it until that lad came riding up with a note which made me walk in here, like a jay, and give myself into your hands.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was a common sound in those parts—as common as the chatter of the jays and the booming of the bittern.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As they passed the old church, which stood upon a mound at the left-hand side of the village street the door was flung open, and a stream of worshippers wound down the sloping path, coming from the morning mass, all chattering like a cloud of jays.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Major Jay Gatsby, I read, For Valour Extraordinary.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

His name was Jay Gatsby and I didn't lay eyes on him again for over four years—even after I'd met him on Long Island I didn't realize it was the same man.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

He was left with his singularly appropriate education; the vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the substantiality of a man.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)