jumbo - Definitions from Dictionary.com

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Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

jum·bo

Audio Help [juhm-boh] Pronunciation Key noun, plural -bos, adjective Informal.

–noun

1.	a very large person, animal, or thing.

2.	jumbo jet.

U.S. Nautical.

a.	a forestaysail having a boom (jumbo boom) along its foot, used esp. on schooners.

b.	a sail used in place of a course on a square-rigged ship, having the form of an isosceles triangle set apex downward.

c.	a narrow triangular sail set point downward in place of a foresail on a topsail schooner.

–adjective

4.	very large: the jumbo box of cereal.

[Origin: 1800–10; orig. uncert.; popularized as the name of a large elephant purchased and exhibited by P.T. Barnum in 1882

]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
jumbo

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American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

jum·bo Audio Help   (jŭm'bō) Pronunciation Key
n.   pl. jum·bos
An unusually large person, animal, or thing.

adj.   Unusually large: jumbo shrimp; a jumbo jet.

[After Jumbo, a large elephant exhibited by P.T. Barnum, probably from slang, clumsy person.]

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
jumbo (adj.)

"very large," 1897, Amer.Eng., in ref. to Jumbo, name of the London Zoo's huge elephant, sold Feb. 1882 to U.S. circus showman P.T. Barnum. The name is probably from slang jumbo "clumsy, unwieldy fellow" (1823), which itself is possibly from a word for "elephant" in a W.African language (cf. Kongo nzamba).

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