Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

Bombay

American  
[bom-bey] / bɒmˈbeɪ /

noun

  1. Mumbai.

  2. a former state in W India: divided in 1960 into the Gujarat and Maharashtra states.

Bombay British  
/ bɒmˈbeɪ /

noun

  1. the former English name of Mumbai

  2. a breed of black short-haired medium-sized cat

"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
Bombay Cultural  

  1. City in western India just off the coast of the Arabian Sea. It is now officially called Mumbai.

Discover More

India's second-largest city, after Calcutta, Bombay is the only natural deep-water harbor in western India.

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.

The city's name was officially changed from Bombay to Mumbai in the mid-1990s.

From BBC • Apr. 3, 2026

Ramamurthy and the Bombay Stock Exchange are not alone.

From BBC • Mar. 2, 2026

Yes, Gulf statelets like Aden were overseen by the Bombay presidency, and yes, the India rupee was, for the most part, their legal tender.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 30, 2026

If you were born in what once was Bombay, but raised a family in L.A., happy new year.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 27, 2025

He told her, spreading some smoked whitefish on a cracker, that his wife resembled an actress in Bombay named Madhuri Dixit.

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.