banyan

See also: banyán and bànyǎn

English
WOTD – 23 February 2009
Ficus bengalensis

Wikispecies

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Portuguese baniano, from Arabic بَنِيَان‎ (baniyān), from Gujarati વાણિયો (vāṇiyo, “merchant”), from Sanskrit वाणिज (vāṇijá), from earlier वणिज् (vaṇíj, “merchant, trader”). The name appears to have been first bestowed popularly on a famous tree of this species growing near Bandar Abbas, under which the Bannians or Hindu traders settled at that port, had built a little pagoda.[1]

Pronunciation
  • (UK, US) IPA(key): /ˈbæn.jən/
  • Audio (US)(file)

Noun

banyan (plural banyans)

  1. An Indian trader, merchant, cashier, or money changer.
  2. A tropical Indian fig tree, Ficus benghalensis, that has many aerial roots.
    • 1914, Teresa Frances & William Rose Benét, The East I Know, translation of original by Paul Claudel, page 33:
      We climb and then descend; we pass by the great banyan which, like Atlas, settling himself powerfully on his contorted haunches, seems awaiting with knee and shoulder the burden of the sky.
  3. A type of loose gown worn in India.
  4. (India) A vest; an undershirt; a singlet.
  5. (Britain, Naval slang, dated) A camping excursion on shore, to give a ship's crew a break from shipboard routine.

Synonyms
  • (tropical Indian fig tree): banyan tree

Translations

See also

References
  1. Yule, Henry, Sir. Hobson-Jobson (1903) A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive.‎, London: J. Murray
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