noun
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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
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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
adjective
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.
Even though my sister lives thousands of miles away, and my parents have been gone for nearly two decades, growing my Bengali plants here makes San Diego, home.
From Salon • May 9, 2026
I cook everything I can get from the expensive grocer near Hillcrest, but I want to cook something Bengali.
From Salon • May 9, 2026
Nonetheless Bengali voters were seen as allergic to the BJP for decades.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 6, 2026
For historian Jayanta Sengupta, fish is "inseparable from Bengali cuisine, shaped by geography and its long role as an affordable source of protein".
From BBC • Apr. 20, 2026
“He’s something of a genius. He has a Punjabi mother and a Bengali father, and because he learns French and English at school he already speaks four languages. I think he skipped two grades.”
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.
