(US) Amateur, untrained; incompetent.
1841, Letter to the editor, The Southern Planter, Volume I, No. 1, January 1841, p.12,[https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010668999]
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(US) Dishonest, unscrupulous.
: The next year I had a projecting kind of jack leg carpenter, from Hanover, living with me in the capacity of overseer
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(US) Ineptly built or operated; makeshift.
1941, Martha Colquitt, Interview published in Slave Narratives, Library of Congress Project, Volume 4: Georgia Narratives, Part 1,[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13602/13602-h/13602-h.htm]
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