Jiggery-pokery

Origin of: Jiggery-pokery

Jiggery-pokery

Jiggery-pokery means dishonest or deceitful goings-on, as in the sentence, “I could not be sure, but I suspected there was some sort of jiggery-pokery going on.” Etymologists are certain that it comes from a 17th century Scottish expression joukery-pawkery where jouk means to dodge or skulk and pawk means artful or sly. From this etymology, it is easy to imbue the expression with its current meaning, which the OED states is from Oxfordshire and Wiltshire dialects in the early 19th century, but gives no explanation as to how and when the expression migrated so far south from Scotland.