jump

Jump refers to the act of propelling the body or an object off a surface, usually by applying force from the ground or another point of contact. The movement consists of takeoff, flight (if any), and landing, and it can be performed for athletic, practical, or recreational purposes.

In humans, jumping is a dynamic action that relies on leg muscles, timing, and body coordination. It is used in sports such as the long jump, high jump, and triple jump, as well as in everyday tasks that require stepping over obstacles. Techniques vary by discipline, with emphasis on takeoff angle, propulsion, and safe landing to reduce injury risk.

In physics and mathematics, jumps describe abrupt changes in a quantity. A jump discontinuity occurs when a function's value changes suddenly as the input crosses a threshold. In stochastic processes, a jump process models sudden events that change the state of a system, separated from continuous evolution.

In computing, a jump is a control-flow operation that transfers execution to a different part of a program. Unconditional jumps transfer unconditionally, while conditional jumps depend on a condition. Jump instructions are common in low-level languages (assembly) and influence program structure by enabling loops, branches, and subroutines, often via labels or addresses.

Other uses of the word appear in idiomatic expressions and as part of technical terminology in fields such as computing and statistics, where it conveys a transition or abrupt change rather than a physical action.