banyan
pronunciation
How to pronounce banyan in British English:
UK [ˈbænjən]
How to pronounce banyan in American English:
US [ˈbænjən]
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- Noun:
- East Indian tree that puts out aerial shoots that grow down into the soil forming additional trunks
- a loose fitting jacket; originally worn in India
Word Origin
- banyan
- banyan: [17] Banyan originally meant ‘Hindu trader’. It is an arabization of Gujarati vāniyān ‘traders’, which comes ultimately from Sanskrit vanija ‘merchant’ (the Portuguese version, banian, produced an alternative English spelling). When European travellers first visited Bandar Abbas, a port on the Persian Gulf, they found there a pagoda which the banyans had built in the shade of a large Indian fig tree. They immediately applied the name banyan to this particular tree, and the term later widened to include all such trees.
- banyan (n.)
- "Indian fig tree," 1630s, so called in reference to a tree on the Iranian coast of the Persian Gulf under which the Hindu merchants known as banians had built a pagoda. From Sanskrit vanija "merchant."
Example
- 1. The banyan spans asia 's spirituality and its entrepreneurialism .
- 2. Look , xiaoling is sitting on the grass under the big banyan tree .
- 3. Indeed his company is named after banyan tree bay where they lived for three years .
- 4. A clothing salesman hangs his wares from the roots of a banyan tree along a wall in mumbai .
- 5. Mr ho 's family tree , meanwhile , is a veritable banyan with multiple trunks .