"built hastily of shoddy materials," 1856, in a Liverpool context, from jerry "bad, defective," probably a pejorative use of the male nickname Jerry (a popular form of Jeremy; compare Jerry-sneak "sneaking fellow, a hen-pecked husband" [OED], name of a character in Foote's "The Mayor of Garret," 1764). Or from or influenced by nautical slang jury (adj.) "temporary," which came to be used of all sorts of makeshift and inferior objects.
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