bento

American  

[ben-toh] / ˈbɛn toʊ /

noun

Japanese Cooking.

• bentos,
  plural
• bento
  plural

1. a meal, usually served in a lacquered or elaborately decorated box that is divided into sections for holding individual portions of food.

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bento British  

/ ˈbɛntəʊ /

noun

1. a thin box, made of plastic or lacquered wood, divided into compartments which contain small separate dishes comprising a Japanese meal, esp lunch

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• bento
  plural
• bentos
  plural

Etymology

Origin of bento

< Japanese bentō, probably < Middle Chinese, equivalent to Chinese bān manage, provide + dāng apply, i.e., provision for an eat-out meal

Explanation

A bento is a Japanese boxed lunch for one person. A bento is usually served in special dishes or containers with separate compartments for each dish. A bento typically consists of meat or fish, rice or noodles, cooked vegetables, and pickles, each tucked into its own little section. In Japan, people take home-cooked bento boxes to work or school, but they can also order a bento at a restaurant or buy one at convenience stores, in airports, or on trains. The Japanese bento comes from the Chinese biandang, "convenient."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bento bentos

“If he ate his meals at the castle, did he bring his bento or was he served his meals?”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 6, 2026

That’s where, for many parents, bento box-style lunch boxes come in.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2025

But that custom was interrupted in 2022 when a flood in the restaurant destroyed the bento orders and forced Brackett to close his doors for awhile.

From New York Times ● Jan. 26, 2024

The famed Japanese bento box, with its tidily boxed meals, is the parent of Taiwan's bento bowl - rice heaped with braised meat, eggs, tofu or vegetables.

From BBC ● Jan. 6, 2024

She also went to my favorite little Japanese cafe and got me a bento box of Japanese fried chicken with rice, miso soup, and potato salad.

From "Finding Junie Kim" by Ellen Oh

Its history as a beloved institution — famous for the Japanese-style architecture at some stations and for its boxed meals, known as railway bentos — has made change politically difficult.

From New York Times ● Jul. 19, 2021

This month, an announcement that bentos can now be ordered online made the evening news.

From New York Times ● May 12, 2016

And that’s not even mentioning the New Year’s bento boxes for dogs, which look pretty much exactly the same as the exquisite bentos made for humans.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 20, 2014