banyan
noun /ˈbænjən/
/ˈbænjən/
(also banyan tree)
- a South Asian tree with structures that grow down from the branches to the ground and then grow into new roots and trunksWord Originlate 16th cent.: from Portuguese, from Gujarati vāṇiyo ‘man of the trading caste’, from Sanskrit. Originally denoting a Hindu merchant, the term was applied, by Europeans in the mid 17th cent., to a tree under which such traders had built a pagoda.