jungle
pronunciation
How to pronounce jungle in British English:
UK [ˈdʒʌŋɡl]
How to pronounce jungle in American English:
US [ˈdʒʌŋɡl]
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- Noun:
- an impenetrable equatorial forest
- a location marked by an intense competition and struggle for survival
- a place where hoboes camp
Word Origin
- jungle
- jungle: [18] Not surprisingly, jungle is a tropical word, but its ancestor denoted quite the opposite of the lush vegetation it now refers to. It comes from Sanskrit jangala, which originally meant ‘dry’, and hence ‘desert’. Its Hindi descendant jangal was used for an ‘area of wasteland’, and hence ‘such an area overgrown with scrub’, and when it was taken over into Anglo-Indian it was gradually extended to an ‘area of thick tangled trees’.
- jungle (n.)
- 1776, from Hindi jangal "desert, forest, wasteland, uncultivated ground," from Sanskrit jangala-s "arid, sparsely grown with trees," of unknown origin. Specific sense of "land overgrown by vegetation in a wild, tangled mass" is first recorded 1849; meaning "place notoriously lawless and violent" is first recorded 1906, from Upton Sinclair's novel (compare asphalt jungle, 1949, William R. Burnett's novel title, made into a film 1950 by John Huston; blackboard jungle, 1954, Evan Hunter's novel title, movie in 1955). Jungle gym was a trademark name, 1923, by Junglegym Inc., Chicago, U.S. Jungle bunny, derogatory for "black person," attested from 1966.
Example
- 1. The whisky was dependably drinkable even in jungle climes .
- 2. Soldiers are now sleeping rough in dense jungle .
- 3. Was spain covered in jungle ?
- 4. I think jones captured jungle warfare brilliantly .
- 5. Vast swathes of bush and jungle are ungoverned .