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Bengali

American  
[ben-gaw-lee, -gah-, beng-] / bɛnˈgɔ li, -ˈgɑ-, bɛŋ- /

noun

  1. a native or an inhabitant of Bengal; Bengalese.

  2. an Indic language spoken in E India and Bangladesh.

  3. Bengalee.

adjective

  1. of or relating to Bengal, its inhabitants, or their language; Bengalese.

Bengali British  
/ bɛŋ-, bɛnˈɡɔːlɪ /

noun

  1. a member of a people living chiefly in Bangladesh and in West Bengal. The West Bengalis are mainly Hindus; the East Bengalis of Bangladesh are mainly Muslims

  2. Also called: Bangla.  the language of this people: the official language of Bangladesh and the chief language of West Bengal; it belongs to the Indic branch of the Indo-European family

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

adjective

  1. of or relating to Bengal, the Bengalis, or their language

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

"I am a Pakistani, but I don't have my identity card," another 22-year-old Bengali, Ahmed, told AFP.

From Barron's • Feb. 23, 2026

He made campaign videos in Hindi and Bengali, among other languages.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 19, 2025

Reddit is currently working to bring machine translation to Bengali and additional languages.

From MarketWatch • Oct. 31, 2025

One mother told BBC Bengali how she'd given her child money for tiffin instead of packing lunch that morning.

From BBC • Jul. 26, 2025

The day before, as she’d cried, Miranda had believed she would never forget anything — not even the way her name looked written in Bengali.

From "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.