My life was saved by rock and roll. --Lou Reed
Where did you hear it? Is there a geographical or historical context?
All I can think of is that it might be a synonym for “Jacobite”; a supporter of James II and his lineage’s right to the English throne.
No luck finding it in any dictionaries I’ve checked - like the Big Bear says, what’s the context?
There’s “geminal” - relating to or characterized by two usually similar substituents on the same atom (Merriam-Webster). The word derives from the Latin for “twin,” geminus.
There’s a thread over in GD about Nathaniel Jamal Abraham, an 11 year old boy who shot and killed total stranger apparently just for the heck of it.
Could “Jamalic” be a brand new slang term based on this incident? Sorta like “going postal”?
Some days you’re the dog, some days you’re the hydrant.
Well, if you’re going to jump to ‘Jamal’, it could also come from Mumia Abu-Jamal, who’s now on death row in Pennsylvania for having questionably killed a cop in Philly.
Ray
Maybe what you heard was ‘dumb aleck’:
http://www.zonehome.com/rt2/_disc/000001d7.htm
Ray (under the influence of Aleck O’Hall)
I can’t find any evidence that anyone is using the word “jamelic” or “jemelic”. When I put the word “jemelic” into a search engine, I get no hits. When I put “jamalic” in, all the hits I get seem to be occurrences of the name Jamal.
I think, if you’ve only heard the word in question, you might be thinking of a variation of ‘gemel’, which would be ‘gemelic’. This is would mean, roughly, of or in the nature of being twins or twinned in some way, as in a matched set of something, or a duo which is usually thought of as going together, like ‘hook-n-loop’ fabric.
"You’ll never get as much out of being right as you will from finding out why you were wrong . . . " The Papoon Principles Ch. 1.
It refers to an actor of no great talent who rides the coat-tails of a more experienced actor. The original reference was to Malcolm Jamal Warner of the Cosby show.
Sorry.
“Jemelic” was being used by a construction worker in the Great Plains as a pejorative. In the context, it meant something like “dumb-ass.”
I was just checking to see that it isn’t some racial epithet before I put it into my working vocabulary.
My life was saved by rock and roll. --Lou Reed
Yep, I think it would be a good idea to learn what the word means before starting to use it. Why don’t you ask the person who used it what it means?
Then you can come back and tell us and be proud that you contributed to the stamping out of ignorance on the SD! (Besides, I really want to know what it means.)
Some days you’re the dog, some days you’re the hydrant.