spring-heeled Jack

English

Noun

spring-heeled Jack (plural spring-heeled Jacks)

1. (historical, folklore) A terrifying man of bizarre appearance and able to make extraordinary leaps, the subject of English folklore of the Victorian era.
   • 1863, Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby:

     And he rattled, thumped, brandished his thunderbox, yelled, shouted, raved, roared, stamped, and danced corrobory like any black fellow; and then he touched a spring in the thunderbox, and out popped turnip-ghosts and magic-lanthorns and pasteboard bogies and spring-heeled Jacks and sallaballas […]

   • 1887, English Dialect Society, Publications, volume 21, number 53, page 367:

     Servant-girls who have just received their year's wages at Christmas will frequently profess themselves afraid to go home after dusk, because “there are so many o' these Spring-heeled Jacks about.”

   • 1953, John B. Cairns, Bright and early: a bookseller's memories of Edinburgh and Lasswade:

     London and Edinburgh had their spring-heeled jacks long before they appeared in Lasswade in Johnny's time. As long ago as 1837 a real, flesh-and-blood ghost in the shape of a spring-heeled jack was caught by a London policeman […]

Usage notes

• Sometimes used as a proper noun, in the belief that there was only one such figure.