Other forms: jackpots
The jackpot is the whole pot of prize money, won all at once. Win the jackpot, the jackpot rolls over, a record jackpot.
It rolls over when nobody wins, which is how lottery jackpots reach enormous figures. Hit the jackpot means to have sudden great success at anything, and it is used far more about jobs and inventions than about gambling. Note progressive jackpot, which grows with every play; and that jackpot came from poker, where a hand needed a pair of jacks or better to open.
1nounjackpotThe whole pot of prize money, won all at once.
“She won the lottery jackpot and gave half of it to her family.”
2nounsuddenSudden great success.
“They hit the jackpot with about the ninth thing they tried.”
jackpot is a top prize.
The word comes from American draw poker, in which the pot accumulated until somebody held a pair of jacks or better. The jack in the name is the playing card, not a person.
Built from
From jack + pot. Attested as jack-pot (“big prize”), 1944; from sense "slot machine" (1932), from obsolete poker sense (1881) "antes that begin when no player has a pair of jacks or better"; from jack (“playing card”) + pot.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA