Other forms: jogging, jogs, jogged
To jog is to run slowly and steadily — the pace you can hold for half an hour without gasping. Trainers on, headphones in, twice round the park before work while it is still half dark.
It works as a noun too: go for a jog, a gentle jog along the canal. The person is a jogger, the activity is jogging, and the g doubles before an ending — jogged, jogging. A second meaning has nothing to do with exercise: to jog something is to knock it slightly, as when someone jogs your elbow and the tea goes across the table. That small knock is behind the phrase jog your memory, which means shaking a forgotten thing loose. Keep the speeds straight: walking, then jogging, then running.
1verbjogTo run at a slow, steady pace for exercise.
“He jogs around the reservoir before breakfast.”
2nountakenA slow run taken for exercise.
“She went out for a short jog and came back soaked.”
3verbknockTo knock or nudge something slightly.
“Someone jogged his arm and the ink went across the page.”
jog is a form of exercise.
Nobody knows where jog comes from, and the dictionaries hedge. Its first meaning was to shake something up and down: it may be a Middle English joggen, a variant of jaggen, to prod or stir up, or an altered form of shog, to jolt or shake, from Middle Dutch schocken, to bounce. Either way, the shaking is older than the running.
Middle English
joggen
English, today
jog
Built from
Of unknown origin. Originally with the meaning of "to shake up and down." Possibly from Middle English joggen, a variant of jaggen (“to pierce, prod, stir up, arouse”); see jag (“sharp projection”). Or, perhaps an early alteration of English shog (“to jolt, shake; depart, go”), from Middle English shoggen, schoggen (“to shake up and down, jog”), from Middle Dutch schocken (“to jolt, bounce”) or Middle Low German schoggen, schocken (“to shog”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic skukkōn (“to move, shake, tremble”), possibly related to skakan (“to shake, stir”). More at shock.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA