BANIAN • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Banian

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noun

Banian n.

A Hindu trader, merchant, cashier, or money changer. (Written also banyan)

A man's loose gown, like that worn by the Banians.

(Bot.) The Indian fig. See Banyan.

Banian days (Naut.), days in which the sailors have no flesh meat served out to them. This use seems to be borrowed from the Banians or Banya race, who eat no flesh.

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Etymology of 'Banian'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Banian" Quotes from Famous Books

... of some twenty acres each. They are pleasant-looking spots, as the shrubs are planted in rows, with tall trees between each row to shelter them from the sun. Sometimes, too, we came upon a species of Banian tree, a noble, wide-spreading tree, with drooping branches, under which might be seen a waggon laden with paddy, and a group of people with their oxen resting by its side. I remarked that coffee was carried in large hampers on the backs of ponies. We used to lunch sometimes ...

— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... whole tree acquired a new character. Even the topmost branches, instead of standing erect, spread and drooped in all directions; and there were so many poles supporting the lower ones, that they looked like pictures of banian-trees. As an old English manuscript says, "The mo appelen the tree bereth, the more sche boweth ...

— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... a very wonderful garden, a jungle of exotic plants and shrubs threaded by narrow walks that led to secluded nooks and unsuspected pleasaunces, and lighted by low-swung festoons of dim lamps, many-coloured. A banian grew curiously in its midst, and there also they found a great tank of crystal water with a bed of brilliant pebbles over which small golden gleaming fish flashed and loitered. Here, where the walls of acacia, orange, thuia and pepal shut ...

— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... must die sooner or later, and it is just as well to be on the bank of the holy Ganges before it is too late. It is too horrible to think of being cremated in your wretched burning-ground here, under that stumpy banian tree—that is why I have been refusing to die, and have plagued ...

— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... forth," said Braid-Beard, "young Uhia spread like the tufted top of the Palm; his thigh grew brawny as the limb of the Banian; his arm waxed strong as the back bone of the shark; yea, his voice ...

— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

Words linked to "Banian" : Indian banyan, fig tree, Ficus bengalensis, banyan, East Indian fig tree