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Knapp, Robbin D. 2005. "Swahili English: J". In Robb: Swahili English. Jan. 8, 2005.

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Jenga n.

from jenga "to construct, build": a game that challenges each player to remove as many blocks as possible from a cross-hatched tower of wooden beams and to use them to build additional stories, all without causing the tower to crash. This entry suggested by Kala Payne.

• "Play games like Twister, jacks, Jenga, Pick-Up Sticks, Operation and charades." Paula M. White, "Bringing out your child's gifts", Essence, Sept. 1997.
• "It requires a deft touch to maintain the delicate balance in a championship football team. Think of it as playing a game of Jenga. One block in the wrong place can cause the whole structure to collapse." Dan Pompei, "Jaguars have the blueprint to mastering free agency", Sporting News, Feb. 14, 2000.
• "There wasn't any masterplan. Instead, it was a Jenga tower of decisions - decisions resting on decisions that only relied on each other for support." Charlotte Raven, "Mandelson: The Biography - Review", New Statesman, May 24, 1999.
• "At first glance, Misu Entertainment Inc.'s La Cittadella, a mixed-use complex, looks like an Italian hill village, with floors stacked asymmetrically like Jenga blocks." "La Cittadella", Retail Traffic, May 1, 2004.
• "The ad is set in an apartment within a complex, where the insistent beat of techno music coming from one tenant's party is loud enough to be heard (and felt) next door by an annoyed young couple. The rhythmic vibrations shake the table, interrupting the pair's game of Jenga." Kathy DeSalvo, "Tarsem Creates Good Vibrations For MGD", Shoot, Dec. 8, 2000.
• "Similarly, parents were instructed to complete 4 additional tasks during the whole family interaction session: (a) a tower building task (Jenga); (b) assisting their child in completing a difficult puzzle; (c) an unstructured model building task (Pablo) involving colorful cardboard pieces that can be connected to construct a sculpture; and (d) a ball-pass game in which family members passed a ball held under their chins to one another without using their hands." Vanessa K. Johnson, "Marital Interaction, Family Organization, and Differences in Parenting Behavior", Family Process, Fall 2001, p. 333-342.
• Jenga magazine
• Books and products related to Jenga

jumbo n., adj.

perhaps from jumbe "chief, headman" or jambo "hello": a very large person, animal or thing; a clumsy person [< Jumbo, the name of P.T. Barnum's very large circus elephant, some sources say this is from Swahili jumbe "chief, headman", at least one source says it is from Swahili jambo "hello", however, other sources say it is (perhaps) from mumbo jumbo < Mandingo dialect mama dyambo, mama dyumbo, a god worshipped in western Africa].

• "There are fresh mushrooms, and jumbo cocoanuts, and green almonds; costly things in beds of cotton nestle next to strange and marvelous things in tissue, wrappings." Edna Ferber, Buttered Side Down, 1911, p. 123.
• "He made his way down the cramped passage (pinnaces were little larger than pre-space jumbo jets) to the flight engineer's cubicle and poked his head in." David Weber, On Basilisk Station, 1994, chap. 16.
• "Superthief gives many other examples of simple and inexpensive mind games--such as leaving a large dog-feeding dish or a jumbo-sized rubber bone lying around the backyard." David Friedman, Price Theory: An Intermediate Text, 1986, chap. 20.
• The Jumbo Duct Tape Book, by Jim Berg, Tim Nyberg & Tony Dierckins, 2000.
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