[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 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 Barum; whence applied to an individual that is big of its kind or to a person of great skill or success.
1823. J. Badcock (Jon Bee), Dict. Turf, Jumbo—a clumsy or unwieldy fellow.
1883. Phil Robinson, in Harper’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.
1892. Kipling & 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.
1900. Grimsby Daily Tel., 28 Nov., 2/4. Nearly 250 yards of dark blue and white ‘jumbo’ plait were used.
2. Trade-name for a shade of grey, like that of an elephant.
1882. Philadelphia Even. Star, 2 May. ‘Jumbo’ is a new gray hue.
3. A board for raising cockles, etc., out of the sand.
1886. Westmld. 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) Jumboesque (whence Jumboesqueness), Jumboism, Jumbomania. nonce-wds.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 18 March, 4/1. A ‘Jumboesque monster’—a machine ‘in which the beauty of outline has been swallowed up in ponderosity.’
1882. Punch, 11 March, 113. If Nature to one of my stature Gave such … Jumboesqueness.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 16 Aug., 7/1. Those who have a dislike of ‘jumboism,’ whether in finance or otherwise.
1892. Rev. of Rev., 15 Sept., 289/2. The Musical Times’ article on ‘Jumbomania.’
1899. Spectator, 21 Oct., 569/2. ‘Jumbomania,’… the worship of mammoth dimensions.
