French India

American  

noun

1. the five small former French territories in India, including Chandernagor, Karikal, Pondicherry, and Yanaon on the E coast, and Mahé on the W coast.

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French India British  

noun

1. a former French overseas territory in India, including Chandernagore and Pondicherry (now Puducherry): restored to India between 1949 and 1954

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

French India

In the words of Gulf scholar Paul Rich, this was "the Indian Empire's last redoubt, just as Goa was Portuguese India's last solitary vestige, or Pondicherry was the tag-end of French India".

From BBC ● Jun. 21, 2025

The Mississippi Company was granted the monopoly of all trade to the East Indies, China, the South Seas, and all the territories of the French India Company, and of the Senegal Company.

From The Humbugs of the World An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages by Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)

Algeria is now safely French; India has been British for more than a century and a half.

From American World Policies by Weyl, Walter E.

"French India" to-day consists of Pondicherry, Karikal, Yanaon, Mahé, and Chandarnagar—196 square miles in all,—while the Indian Empire of Britain spreads over an area of 1,800,000 square miles.

From A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. by Hayes, Carlton J. H.

Messrs. Law and Chevalier, governors in French India, determined to send a vessel at their own risk to trade in the southern seas.

From Celebrated Travels and Travellers Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century by Benett, Léon