From which language do we get the word 'jumbo'?

RickF

Swahili, or some similar East African dialect. [Apr 26 04 8:44 AM] RickF writes: Jumbo the elephant is often said not to be the origin of jumbo the word, because it has been found in an 1823 work about racing in reference to a big clumsy person. However, this appears just once, with no further examples turning up until after Jumbo had become famous. It is possible that the older word was not in fact the source (though we have to remember that slang terms were often very badly recorded at this period). It’s also suggested that Jumbo got his name from mumbo-jumbo, a word for a West African deity (inappropriate, as it happens, because Jumbo had been captured on the other side of the continent). Oddly, though neatly, mumbo-jumbo is also thought to be the origin of the earlier slang jumbo. The most plausible suggestion is that given in W P Jolly’s book of 1976 about Jumbo. He says that his keeper at London Zoo gave him that name—soon after he arrived—from the Zulu jumba, a large packet or parcel (which he certainly was: even as a rather sick four-year-old, Jumbo was five feet high and weighed about half a ton). http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-jum3.htm Apr 26 04, 7:35 AM

shady shaker

A YAY! to RickF. "jumbo" comes from the Swahili "jumbe", which means "chief". [Apr 26 04 10:30 AM] shady shaker writes: According to Brewer's Dictionary of Names "...the name itself (ie jumbo) derives from the Swahili 'jumbe', 'chief,' and was already in use as a general term or name for a large person or animal". (Brewer's p. 275, Helicon, 1999). Apr 26 04, 8:16 AM