Profile America: Jumbo the Elephant
“But not too many of us know where the term came from. “Jumbo” is the West African word for elephant and was the name of a huge animal captured in Africa and exhibited in London beginning in 1865. U.S. circus impresario P. T. Barnum purchased the elephant and brought him to New York in 1882, where he paraded up Broadway on Easter Sunday. He captured America’s imagination, and his name entered the language as a synonym for anything oversized.” - Kansas City infoZine
