1. a South Asian tree with structures that grow down from the branches to the ground and then grow into new roots and trunksTopics
   Word Originlate 16th cent.: from Portuguese, from Gujarati vānÌ£iyo ‘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.

[TahlilGaran] English Dictionary ▲