Banyan
name, noun, slang ·2 syllables ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 An Indian trader, merchant, cashier, or money changer.
- 2 a loose fitting jacket; originally worn in India wordnet
- 3 A tropical Indian fig tree, Ficus benghalensis, that has many aerial roots.
"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."
- 4 East Indian tree that puts out aerial shoots that grow down into the soil forming additional trunks wordnet
- 5 Various other trees of the Ficus subgenus Urostigma, especially Ficus pertusa (Central American banyan) and Ficus microcarpa (Chinese banyan or Malayan banyan).
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- 6 A type of loose gown worn in India.
- 7 A vest; an undershirt; a singlet. India, Pakistan
"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."
- 8 A camping excursion on shore, to give a ship's crew a break from shipboard routine. British, dated, slang
- 1 A locality in the Shire of Buloke, north western Victoria, Australia
Example
More examples"The children played hide-and-seek among the banyan tree's aerial roots."
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.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.