Other forms: jungles
A jungle is a hot thick wild forest. Deep in the jungle, jungle animals, the law of the jungle.
It means dense tangled growth rather than rainforest in general — a mature rainforest floor is quite open because the canopy blocks the light, and true jungle grows where light reaches the ground, at edges and clearings. The law of the jungle means survival without rules. Note concrete jungle; and that jungle is also a British dance music genre of the 1990s.
1nounjungleA hot thick wild forest.
“The explorers cut a path through the jungle, surrounded by snakes and monkeys.”
jungle is a forest.
Hindi jangal comes from Sanskrit jangala, which meant arid or waste ground rather than dense forest. English reversed the meaning entirely on borrowing it in about 1776.
Sanskrit
जङ्गल — arid or sterile region, desert
pra-sau
𑀚𑀁𑀕𑀮
Urdu
جَن٘گَل
Hindi
जंगल
English, today
jungle
inc-hnd - (Hindi जंगल / Urdu جَن٘گَل), from pra-sau 𑀚𑀁𑀕𑀮, from Sanskrit जङ्गल (“arid or sterile region, desert”), from a qfa-sub language. First appears c. 1776 in a translation by Nathaniel Halhed.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA