What does "chennai" mean?

The capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, India, formerly known as Madras.

Chennai

Common synonyms include: chenappapatam, chennapatnam, chennapattanamu, chinapatam, chinapatana, madras.

//ˈt͡ʃɛnaɪ// name

name ·Rare ·Advanced level

Proper Noun

1
The capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, India, formerly known as Madras.
"The £4bn expressways form a diamond linking Delhi with the country's three other largest cities, Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta, marking the beginning of more than £35bn of road projects."
2
A district of Tamil Nadu, India, containing most of metro Chennai.

"My dream is to study Tamil in Chennai."

Borrowed from Tamil சென்னை (ceṉṉai).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.