jounce

/dʒaʊns/

Other forms: jounced; jouncing; jounces

To jounce is to move up and down suddenly, the way you jounce around in the back seat of your brother's old car as he drives along a rutted dirt road.

When you jounce, you bounce abruptly. You may love to jounce down a frozen hill on an old plastic sled, while your best friend prefers the relative comfort of a huge, inflatable tube. Jounce is also a noun: "That last jounce knocked my teeth together." This word is probably a combination of bounce and jump or jolt, and we've been using it since the mid-15th century.

Definitions of jounce

1. verb

   move up and down repeatedly
   synonyms: bounce

   type of:

   go, locomote, move, travel

   change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically
2. noun

   a sudden jarring impact
   synonyms: jar, jolt, shock

   type of:

   blow, bump

   an impact (as from a collision)