jaywalking

English

Etymology 1

Back-formation from jaywalker. Analyzable as jaywalk +‎ -ing, or jay (“a stupid person”) +‎ walking.

Noun

jaywalking (uncountable)

  1. An act of behaving as a jaywalker.
    • 1919, Sinclair Lewis, Free Air, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, page 257:
      […] when he had felt unhappy over a movie theater large enough to contain ten times the population of Schoenstrom, and been cursed by a policeman for jaywalking, and had passed a hotel entirely full of diplomats and marble and caviare […]
    • 2021 January 13, Alan Ehrenhalt, “Jaywalking and the Dilemma of ‘Victimless’ Crimes”, in Governing‎[1], archived from the original on 4 March 2021:
      For decades in this country, California was the national capital of jaywalking enforcement.
Translations

Etymology 2

From jaywalk +‎ -ing.

Verb

jaywalking

  1. present participle and gerund of jaywalk
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