banyan
/ˈbæn.jæn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.57 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An Indian trader, merchant, cashier, or money changer.
noun
A tropical Indian fig tree, Ficus benghalensis, that has many aerial roots.
noun
Various other trees of the Ficus subgenus Urostigma, especially Ficus pertusa (Central American banyan) and Ficus microcarpa (Chinese banyan or Malayan banyan).
Example Sentences
- "When doubling a point, which was covered with a heavy growth of the banian mangrove, which extended into deep water, we discovered a party of Kubu Orangs fishing from off a pack of drift that had lodged against the inward trend of the northern shore."
- "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."
- "It was an honest letter, written by an honest man, then stewing in the Plains on two hundred rupees a month (for he allowed his wife eight hundred and fifty), and in a silk banian and cotton trousers."
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. Doublet of bunnia.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: baniano, بَنِيَان, વાણિયો, वाणिज
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈbæn.jæn/
- British English: /ˈbæn.jæn/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Phrases
Frequently Paired Words
Banyan in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)