Jun"gle (jŭ?"g\l), n. [Hind. jangal desert, forest, jungle; Skr. ja?gala desert.] A dense growth of brushwood, grasses, reeds, vines, etc.; an almost impenetrable thicket of trees, canes, and reedy vegetation, as in India, Africa, Australia, and Brazil.

The jungles of India are of bamboos, canes, and other palms, very difficult to penetrate. Balfour (Cyc. of India).

Jungle bear (Zoöl.), the aswail or sloth bear. -- Jungle cat(Zoöl.), the chaus. -- Jungle cock (Zoöl.), the male of a jungle fowl. -- Jungle fowl. (Zoöl.)(a) Any wild species of the genus Gallus, of which several species inhabit India and the adjacent islands; as, the fork-tailed jungle fowl (G. varius) of Java, G. Stanleyi of Ceylon, and G. Bankiva of India. The latter, which resembles the domestic gamecock, is supposed to be one of the original species from which the domestic fowl was derived. (b) An Australian grallatorial bird (Megapodius tumulus) which is allied to the brush turkey, and, like the latter, lays its eggs in mounds of vegetable matter, where they are hatched by the heat produced by decomposition.

-- Webster's unabridged 1913