Marathi
Americannoun
adjective
noun
Usage
What does Marathi mean? Marathi is a language spoken mainly in Maharashtra, a state in the Republic of India, a southern Asian country. Marathi is a member of the Indic family of languages, which includes languages spoken in Northern India, such as Hindi and Bengali. Marathi is the state language of Maharashtra, a central-western Indian state. Nearly all of the world’s speakers of Marathi live in Maharashtra and its neighboring states or are Maharashtrian immigrants who moved elsewhere, such as to the island of Mauritius.
Etymology
Origin of Marathi
First recorded in 1820–30
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.
In the oldest known writing in Marathi, a language spoken by millions in western and central India, a 13th-century religious leader named Cakradhara points to an acacia tree as a symbol of death and rebirth.
From Science Daily • Feb. 1, 2026
Digvijay Patil, a PhD student in archeology at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Pune, noticed repeated mentions of unusual plants while studying Sanskrit and Marathi texts related to sacred sites.
From Science Daily • Feb. 1, 2026
In Mumbai, a Jain monk told BBC Marathi that thousands of pigeons would die of hunger due to the feeding ban.
From BBC • Aug. 17, 2025
"These sandals are made with the hard work of leather workers in Kolhapur. They should be named after Kolhapur. Don't take advantage of others' labour," Prabha Satpute, a Kolhapuri artisan, told BBC Marathi.
From BBC • Jun. 30, 2025
In his zeal to propagate the interest of Marathi, he has even neglected the success of his newspaper which has been falling in circulation.
From Behind the News: Voices from Goa's Press by Various
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.
