noun
Jenga
JEHNG-guh
noun
1
A game in which players take turns pulling wooden blocks from a stacked tower and placing them on top, trying not to be the one who makes it collapse.
"We played Jenga after dinner and the tower crashed down on my turn."
"The kids built the Jenga tower as high as they could before it toppled."
2
Loosely, any situation or plan so delicately balanced that one wrong move could bring the whole thing down.
"The company's finances were a game of Jenga — pull one bad loan out and everything collapses."
"Renegotiating just one clause of the contract felt like playing Jenga with the whole deal."
How to Use Jenga
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishThe block-stacking game — and, by extension, anything precariously balanced where one wrong move ruins everything.
Common pairings
play Jenga
a game of Jenga
the Jenga tower
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We played _____ after dinner and the tower crashed down on my turn.
Etymology
From the Swahili word jenga, meaning "to build" — fitting, since the game is all about building (and then un-building) a tower.