1826 W. N. Glascock Naval Sketch-bk. I. 140 A considerable part of the property plundered was secreted and carried away in boats, called ‘jack-asses’, to the outports.

1837 R. M. Martin Hist. Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, &c. vi. iii. 317 There are an immense number of boats of different descriptions engaged in the shore fishery; viz. punts, skiffs, jacks, or jackasses, western boats, and shallops, employing from one to seven men each, according to their size.

1889 Cent. Dict. Jackass,..3. Naut., same as hawse-bag.

1907 A. T. Mahan From Sail to Steam iv. 96 The absurd-sounding, but legitimate, message to have the jackasses put in the hawse-holes.

1918 F. Riesenberg Under Sail ii. 29 ‘Jackasses’ were then bowsed into the hawse holes for fair.

1984 J. Harland Seamanship in Age of Sail xviii. 238/2 The former [sc. hawse-plugs], known to the American seamen as ‘jackasses’, were conical canvas bags thrust into the opening, and backed up by the wooden shield or ‘buckler’.

1844 Port Phillip Gaz. (Melbourne) 2 Nov. 4/1 Of the feather'd tribe, the Duck, Goose, and Swan These fairy lakes are sure to linger on. Myriad of Parrots, with plumes so gay, The Jackass laughs and proclaims break of day; The Cockatoo by Nature taught to speak, Without being domicil'd, if I don't mistake.

1859 H. Kingsley Recoll. Geoffry Hamlyn II. i. 4 Below us, in the valley, a mob of jackasses were shouting and laughing uproariously.

1943 C. E. Goode Bridge Party at Boyanup 25 A jackass laughed from a mountain ash near a sleeper cutter's camp.

1979 B. Martyn First Footers S. Gippsland 138 Jackasses had awakened and were breakfasting at the roots of fallen trees.

2001 Weekend Austral. (Nexis) 13 Jan. r26 Sometimes a kookaburra sits in stony concentration... There is an iron fence nearby and the marauding jackass alights.

1880 L. A. Meredith Tasmanian Friends & Foes 110 We, too, have a ‘jackass’, a smaller bird, and not in any way remarkable, except for its merry gabbling sort of song.

1901 Emu I. 82 Cracticus cinereus..Grey Butcher Bird..the common name for the bird being the ‘Jackass’.

1931 Bulletin (Sydney) 6 May 21/3 The ‘jackass’ of Tassie is the grey butcher-bird.

1834 G. Thorburn Men & Manners in Brit. xx. 139 We think we are wise..though we are born as ignorant as a set of wild young jackass colts.

1928 S. V. Benét John Brown's Body iv. 163 Yellow corn meal and a jackass colt, A door that swings on a broken bolt.

1989 P. Godwin Snake Oil Wars ix. 80 That jackass colt of yours pops out of his stall again, I'll move for contempt, myself.

1824 Cobbett's Weekly Reg. 24 Apr. 228 One man (the driver of a jackass-cart) had actually been..extorted on to the amount of 29s. 6d.

1935 E. M. Roberts He sent forth Raven ii. 64 A clumsy two-wheeled jackass cart.

1994 B. Heydorn Walk Good Guyana Boy xxix. 181 A getaway jackass cart came careening by.

1789 New Lady's Mag. Aug. 446/2 There were afterwards foot races, jack-ass races, jumping in sacks,..with a variety of other country amusements.

1882 Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago) 11 Jan. 3/1 He says that he never was a judge but once, and that was at a jackass race in Louisville.

1928 Essex Rev. 37 173 Mixed societies of sexes and families were chiefly confined to meetings at fairs and a few horse or jackass races in the summer.

2014 Hells Canyon Jrnl. (Halfway, Oregon) (Nexis) 27 Aug. The entertainment included the Comancheros Riding Club Drill Team..and a jackass race.

1807 Morning Chron. 31 Mar. In the suburbs the up and downs, round-abouts, jack ass racing, and all the usual sports of the lower order of people went forward with as much glee as on any preceding holiday.

1821 John Bull 22 Apr. 151/2 The disgraceful purpose of..drinking, fighting, jack-ass racing,..and picking of pockets.

c1830 Thomas Steady & John Wild: Pt. I 4 I don't think our fair would be quite so bad if young Mr. Madcap was not so fond of jackass-racing, dog and cock fighting, and the like cruel sights.

1832 S. G. Howe Let. 24 Mar. in Boston Courier 28 May 1/4 I have, in my day, eaten jackass meat, but never tried the hide.

1955 M. Kantor Andersonville xxi. 240 Wirz would give him at least jackass meat.

2001 Sunday Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 29 Apr. 2 f/5 Suppose I tell you about a butcher who sold jackass meat right here in Jamaica in World War Two?

1861 Steubenville (Ohio) Weekly Herald 11 Dec. The usual quiet of this town was interrupted, yesterday, by the passing through the place of Capt. Howe's Jackass Battery.

1871 J. M. Gould Hist. 1st-10th-29th Maine Regiment xix. 152 They had along with them the mountain howitzer or ‘Jackass’ battery.

1914 Bellman 22 Aug. 245/2 This poor jackass battery had always come in for a deal of good-natured joking at home.

1963 N. B. Wiltsey Brave Warriors i. 57 Sharpshooters knocked out Miles's ‘jackass battery’ by killing the mules and riders, and the guns were abandoned.

2013 P. E. Faller Indiana Jackass Regiment Civil War viii. 87 The Jackass Battery fired a few shells into a sugar house and surrounding cane field.

1831 Age 20 Feb. 59/1 Of what use are the jack-ass frigates, that can neither fight nor run away?

1834 F. Marryat Peter Simple I. xiii. 189 ‘What do you mean by a jackass frigate?’ inquired I. ‘I mean one of your twenty-eight gun ships, so called, because there is as much difference between them and a real frigate, like the one we are sailing in, as there is between a donkey and a race-horse.’

1860 R. F. Burton Lake Regions Central Afr. I. i. 2 The Artémise is a kind of ‘Jackass-frigate’, an 18-gun corvette, teak-built in Bombay.

1977 P. O'Brian Mauritius Command ix. 239 Heavy frigate, Indiaman, and a ship-rigged sloop or maybe a jackass frigate, all wearing French colours.

2005 M. Adams Admiral Collingwood i. 48 There was nothing simple about sailing a square-rigged ship, even one as comparatively small as a jackass frigate.

1874 J. H. Collins Princ. Metal Mining (1875) x. 60 When the pick is much used as a lever, the head is frequently formed..with a projecting wing to afford increased support to the helve. This is called a jackass pick.

1911 Webster's New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. Jackass pick, a pick with a protecting wing to support the helve so that the implement may be used as a lever.

1895 Kingston (Jamaica) Tri-weekly Gleaner 29 June A goat skin bag containing..a twist of ‘jackass rope’ tobacco.

1938 Z. N. Hurston Tell my Horse iv. 59 One old man smoking jack-ass rope tobacco.

1989 O. Senior Arrival of Snake-woman 12 They were out in the sun all day and..smoked jackass rope and cussed bad words.

2015 P. Mordecai Red Jacket xxv. 219 I smell him, his jackass rope, the coffee that he brew for us on Sunday morning.

1861 Mitchell's Maritime Reg. 890 On the 10th instant there was launched from the building-yard of Messrs. J. and J. Hall, at Arbroath, a beautifully modelled jackass barque, named the Princess Alice, of 190 tons N.N.M.

1901 Forest & Stream 22 June 482/1 The Dagmar was neither a jackass bark nor a blackbirder.

1913 R. A. Freeman Unwilling Adventurer x. 137 The master ran aloft with a glass, and from the foretop he could make out the vessel to be a jackass barque.

2012 J. Sprackland Strands 15 Even after reading up I can't tell which kind the Star of Hope is—brigantine, perhaps, or barquentine, or better still the wonderfully named jackass-barque.

1878 E. V. Kenealy Trial Sir Roger Tichborne VI. 174/2 A vessel with square yards upon her mainmast and foremast may not be a brig. She is what sailors call a jackass-brig.

1887 G. Davis Recoll. Sea Wanderer's Life 231 She is what is called a jackass brig. She has one mast square rigged and the other is schooner rigged, with topsail.

1926 Sea Breezes 8 214 There was a jackass brig, no main course, main yard high up, rigged like a topsail schooner on main mast.

2016 J. L. Haley Shores of Tripoli i. 13 Little schooner turned jackass brig she may have been, but she was every inch a fighter and everyone knew it.

1887 F. Marryat Driven to Bay I. viii. 116 In this old tub—which boasted a jackass rig—..Abel Coffin had gone in at the hawse holes and out at the cabin windows.

1919 Pacific Marine Rev. Oct. 119 Unable to place this boat's arrangement of sail mariners call it a ‘jackass’ rig.

1944 R. Gessner Treason x. 152 He knew a jackass rig on a brig handled better than a full rig.

2006 Maritime Manitowoc 1847–1947 (Wisconsin Maritime Mus.) ii. 39 The schooner Grand Haven is rigged with what was referred to as a ‘jackass rig’.

1883 E. F. Knight Cruise of ‘Falcon’ I. 53 October 19th..passed a jackass-rigged craft.

1898 A. Ansted Dict. Sea Terms 239 There is another class of trading schooner, with three masts... When it sets square sails on the foremast it is sometimes called jackass rigged.

1950 Sea Breezes Sept. 231/1 There is no evidence of the hollow entry which Mr. Catling found in the jackass-rigged Bluejacket.

1989 F. F. Kaiser Built on Honor, Sailed with Skill xxv. 219 Sailors generally referred to the five schooners built by the Vinnen Line in the early 1920s as ‘jackass rigged’.

1879 Lippincott's Monthly Mag. Aug. 156/1 The larger ones are more frequently rigged as ‘jackass schooners’, with no booms and ridiculous little staysails, all the masts being shipped several feet more forward than with us.

1913 R. A. Freeman Unwilling Adventurer ix. 121 Three hundred and fifty sail of every rig and size, from the majestic ship of the line to the little jackass schooner.

1951 H. Benham Down Tops'l v. 71 ‘Jackass’ schooners..were so called because they were square rigged forward like a tops'l schooner, but had a ketch's mizzen.

2000 R. Mayne Lang. Sailing 153 A jackass schooner is a three-masted schooner with no main topmast and square sails set on her foremast.

1850 Proc. Zool. Soc. London 18 131 This animal is called Sing-Sing by all the negroes... The English on the Gambia call it a Jackass Deer from its appearance.

1884 H. H. Bancroft et al. Hist. California I. viii. 185 Traces are seen of animals which the friar imagines to be buffaloes, but which the soldiers pronounce burros, or ‘jackass deer’, such as they had seen in New Mexico.

1894 R. Lydekker Royal Nat. Hist. II. 351 It [sc. the call of the stag] has..been compared to the bray of a donkey; and it is suggested that it is partly from this that the wapiti has received the nickname of ‘jackass deer’, bestowed upon it by the traders in the Rocky Mountains.

1917 A. Samler Brown & G. Gordon-Brown Guide S. & E. Afr. iii. 744 The Sing Sing Antelope proper (c. unctuosus) is confined to the West Coast, being common in the Senegal and Gambia districts where it is known as the Jackass Deer.

1946 Frontiers Apr. 104/2 They have been compared to the bray of a donkey, and it is supposed that from this the wapiti was given the name of ‘jackass deer’.

1995 A. B. Guthrie Fair Land, Fair Land vi. 34 Once in a while now a mule deer—I call 'em jackass deer on account of the ears—it kind of strolls by.

1880 Rep. Royal Comm. Fisheries New S. Wales 1177 It is called the jackass fish? Yes; they are a species of morwong.

1951 T. C. Roughley Fish & Fisheries Aust. 97 The morwong and the jackass-fish are grouped together..in New South Wales under the name of ‘morwong’.

2003 Advertiser (Nexis) 23 May 66 Deep water bottom fishing was far more rewarding, with flathead, big-eye trevally and jackass fish competing for baits.

1825 J. Weddell Voy. S. Pole iii. 57 The names by which they are distinguished are, the macaroni, the jack-ass, and the stone-cracker penguin.

1902 Libr. Nat. Hist. 4 2321 The jackass penguin is in the habit of nesting in burrows.

2005 Independent 20 Dec. 5/1 Toga, a baby jackass penguin, is missing, believed stolen from his home in a zoo on the Isle of Wight.

1847 W. S. Henry Campaign Sketches War with Mexico viii. 61 We..started any number of hares (called jackass rabbits), and had no little amusement in witnessing some animated runs.

1851 J. W. Audubon in J. J. Audubon & J. Bachman Viviparous Quadrupeds N. Amer. II. 97 All ideas of blue mountains, vast rolling prairies, &c., were cut short by a jackass rabbit bounding from under our horses' feet.

1928 Poetry Aug. 252 Droll and erratic, a jackass rabbit jumps From form to field, or wallows in the sand.

2008 J. F. Freeman High Plains Hort. vii. 124 Their very long, donkey-like ears earned them the name ‘jackass rabbits’, later shortened for respectability.

1855 U.S. Mag. Sci., Arts, Manuf. Nov. 204/2 Those white souls looking down on blacks must be woven of the slackest texture that can be so fretted and disturbed at mere jogging and jackassing over the rails together.

1893 C. G. Leland Memoirs I. 228 Driving in a Russian telega, or jackassing in Egypt.

1908 G. L. Carlisle Around World in Year 60 We jackassed it through the bazaar and market-place there to the ancient rock tombs away up on the bare mountain-side.

1991 T. R. Gardner Paper Dynasty xlv. 325 Wasn't that why he left Pennsylvania in the first place, jackassing across this endless land of ourn, to get away from that blasted coal dust?

1908 P. J. McKeon in Cassier's Mag. Mar. 509/1 Stretching the hose to the building and then ‘jackassing’ it up a stairway, or fire escape, into another building, on a roof, or over fences and walls.

1930 R. D. Borden & P. Buranelli Maggie of Suicide Fleet iv. 104 The remainder of the voyage was a nightmare of parted towlines and jackassing in tons of chain.

1931 J. K. Boyd Jerry Dalrymple & his Tulane 1931 Green Wave National Champions 33 The only work I could get for you is with the Railway Express Agency, jackassing express packages on a hand-truck for 60 cents an hour.

1986 Amer. Cinematographer Jan. 56 We called a local gaffer and got some huge nine-lights and hundreds of feet of heavy cable and a 2.15 amp generator and jackassed that across this ranch.

1997 B. Davis They call me Bill 64 Jack Stickle..jackassed it [sc. the piano] up several stair steps to our house.