What does jarred mean?
Jarred is an inflected form of jar with two ordinary but distinct uses. In food and household contexts, it means placed, sealed, or preserved in a jar, as in jarred peaches or jarred preserves. In descriptions of reactions, it means suddenly jolted, shaken, or made to feel shocked and disconcerted: someone may be jarred by unexpected news. The latter sense is somewhat literary and informal; startled, shocked, or rattled is usually more neutral. As a verb, jarred is the past tense and past participle of jar and is most often transitive when discussing food. As an adjective, it commonly appears in passive or predicative constructions, such as visibly jarred, though it can also modify food directly. The word is useful because its everyday household association makes the figurative idea of being abruptly shaken easy to visualize. It belongs to standard British and American English, with the usual regional differences in vowel length and the pronunciation of r.
To place or preserve something in a jar; to jolt or shake suddenly; or figuratively, to shock or disconcert someone.
"They jarred the peaches and arranged the jars on the shelf."
The past tense and past participle forms are identical. The physical sense of jolting is less common today than the food and figurative shock senses.
Describing something preserved in a jar or someone or something that has been shocked, startled, or disconcerted.
"The spectators were visibly jarred by the announcement."
The shocked or disconcerted sense is often used in passive or predicative constructions and has a somewhat literary or informal tone.
A jar can preserve food—or, figuratively, leave you jarred.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does jarred come from?
Jarred is an inflected form of jar. The container sense descends from English jar, a 17th-century borrowing from Anglo-French jarre, ultimately from Medieval Latin garia, whose further origin is uncertain. The shock-related senses use jar in its verb sense of jolting or shaking, including later figurative developments involving sudden shock or disconcertion.
How jarred is actually used
In the sense of shock or disconcertion, jarred is somewhat literary or informal; startled, shocked, or rattled is usually more neutral. It is common in passive or predicative constructions, such as visibly jarred, and is also widely used to describe food preserved in jars.