| 释义 |
jumbo|ˈdʒʌmbəʊ|
[Of uncertain origin: possibly the second element in Mumbo Jumbo, a name applied (in English since the 18th c.) to a West African divinity or bogy.]
1. a. A big clumsy person, animal, or thing; popularized, esp., as the individual name of an elephant, famous for its size, in the London Zoological Gardens, subsequently sold in Feb. 1882 to Barnum; whence applied to an individual that is big of its kind or to a person of great skill or success.
1823J. Badcock (J. Bee) Dict. Turf, Jumbo, a clumsy or unwieldly fellow. 1883Harper's Mag. Oct. 705/2 It is the Jumbo of crickets, and just as black. 18..Music & Drama X. ii. 9 (Cent.) The combined successes of that jumbo of successful business men. 1892Kipling & Balestier Naulahka 212 She's a Jumbo at theory, but weak in practice.
b. attrib. used to distinguish things of very large size, as jumbo straw-plait, a plait of an inch wide. Also Comb., as jumboburger U.S., a large hamburger; jumbo jet, a large jet aeroplane with a seating capacity of several hundred passengers; jumbo-size(d) a., of a large size.
1897Sears, Roebuck Catal. 12/2 Peaches, Jumbo California, halves. 1900Westm. Gaz. 27 Nov. 7/2 Near 250 yards of dark blue and white ‘jumbo’ plait were used. 1916Amer. City Apr. 373/1 Large jumbo peanuts were bought, instead of culls. 1940S. Lewis Bethel Merriday i. 19 The three children..supped on a jumbo malted milk. 1949Sat. Even. Post 2 Apr. 116/3 Davis..is a jumbo-sized (six feet two, 202 pounds) man of forty-six. 1958Daily Express 1 Apr. 1/4 You and your jumbo Martinis!! 1959Observer 8 Nov. 3/5 We can expect the kind of hamburger proliferation that exists in America, with beefburgers, eggburgers, cheeseburgers, jumbo burgers, superior ‘Hamburger Heavens’. 1960Guardian 9 Sept. 8/4 The jumbo-sized plastic bone. 1964Punch 15 July 79/3 The silly girl spends most of her time eating jumboburgers. 1964Economist 19 Dec. 1317/2 Some..airlines do not expect..an American supersonic airliner ever to go into production. Jumbo-jets, with 500 seats and two decks,..look much cheaper to fly. 1965Teacher's World 18 June 5/4 The shelves of the local supermarket are full of ‘king-sized’, ‘giant economy’ and ‘jumbo’ packages. 1965Business Weekly 25 Dec. 31 Nosing into the Jumbo jet race: Lockheed, Boeing and Douglas. 1968‘R. Raine’ Night of Hawk xxvii. 126 The meal was avocado salad, a jumbo-size steak, and a mountain of ice cream. 1969Listener 13 Nov. 683/3 They can replace two flights on conventional aircraft with a single jumbo jet flight. 1970Drum (E. Afr. ed.) Feb. 31/3 This airport will be capable of handling jumbo jets and is ideally situated in the heart of the safari country. 1972J. Rossiter Rope for General Dietz iii. 34 The shrill rasping of a jumbo-size cicada..woke me. 1973Sun 18 Jan. 6 The Prime Minister handled his jumbo Press conference amid the splendour of Lancaster House with poise and style.
c. Engin. Any of various large types of equipment used in drilling, lifting, dumping, etc.
1908Sat. Even. Post 7 Nov. 11/3 Nearest the portal was the ‘jumbo’, a great, movable platform through which the ‘muckers’ dumped their barrow-loads to cars beneath. 1909Webster, Jumbo,..a large traveling carriage for transporting excavated material, as in tunnel driving. 1950Engineering 10 Mar. 264/3 The method is well illustrated in the Stockholm tunnel, using a truck-mounted jumbo. 1951Ibid. 12 Jan. 34/2 The concrete was placed from a travelling frame or ‘jumbo’, as it is termed in American practice. This straddled the pipe and travelled on rails laid in an excavated trench.
d. (See quot. 1948.)
1912Outing Aug. 629/2 The pilot schooners when lying at their stations, the sail carried being jumbo or forestaysail, foresail, and reefed mainsail. 1916F. W. Wallace Shack Locker (1922) i. 22 Slack off that jumbo an' the foresheet! 1927Canad. Fisherman 141/2 A gigantic sea boarded the vessel and broke about fifteen feet up the jumbo stay. 1932J. Barbour 48 Days Adrift vii. 94 ‘Hard, down hard,’ I cried; ‘haul over the jumbo sheet. If we are not careful we will all be lost this time.’ 1948R. de Kerchove Internat. Maritime Dict. 377/1 Jumbo (U.S.). 1. The forestaysail on fore-and-aft-rigged vessels. 2. A triangular sail which sets, point downward, on the foreyard of a square-rigged vessel or a topsail schooner in place of the regular foresail. 1956A. F. Loomis ‘Hotspur’ Story x. 117 The weather looked a little threatening and I set the jumbo and storm jib.
e. Short for jumbo jet.
1966New Statesman 22 Apr. 591/2 The competitors..need only a small handful of jumbos..on the popular long-distance routes. Ibid., A rival jumbo designed by Douglas. 1971Daily Tel. (Colour Suppl.) 8 Jan. 15/4 A collision between two jumbos on the approaches to Heathrow could produce a deathroll of thousands. 1972H. Osborne Pay-Day iii. xiii. 154 They can't get him on a plane before tonight. They want someone to go down on the Jumbo today. 1973Guardian 12 Mar. 10/4 Jumbo⁓loads of Soviet immigrants. 1974Observer (Colour Suppl.) 29 Sept. 65/1 The visitors who disembarked from our jumbo at Kai Tak Airport.
2. Trade-name for a shade of grey, like that of an elephant.
1882Philadelphia Even. Star 2 May, ‘Jumbo’ is a new gray hue.
3. A board for raising cockles, etc. out of the sand.
1886Westmld. Gaz. 18 Dec., A ‘jumbo’ was a piece of wood used for the purpose of raising cockles and other similar fish out of the sand.
Hence (from sense 1) jumboˈesque (whence jumboˈesqueness), ˈjumboism, jumboˈmania. nonce-wds.
1893Westm. Gaz. 18 Mar. 4/1 A ‘Jumboesque monster’—a machine ‘in which the beauty of outline has been swallowed up in ponderosity. 1882Punch 11 Mar. 113 If Nature to one of my stature Gave such..Jumboesqueness. 1900Westm. Gaz. 16 Aug. 7/1 Those who have a dislike of ‘jumboism’, whether in finance or otherwise. 1891Rev. of Rev. 15 Sept. 289/2 The Musical Times' article on ‘Jumbomania’. 1899Spectator 21 Oct. 569/2 ‘Jumbomania’,..the worship of mammoth dimensions. |