Bengal
(bɛŋˈgɔːl)
In 7 bengall.
[Name of a province of Hindustan (in Marco Polo, 1298, as Bangala; in Vasco de Gama, 1498, as Bemgala; in Ovington, 1690, as Bengala; Col. Yule).]
1. Applied to piece goods (apparently of different kinds) exported from Bengal to England in the 17th c.: cf. Bengal Stripes in 2.
| c 1680 Polexfen Coll. Poems 205 Their Persian Silks, Bengalls, Printed and Painted Callicoes..are used for Beds, Hanging of Rooms. 1696 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) IV. 147 A bill to be brought in to forbid the wearing of wrought silks brought from Persia and East India, with bengalls, callicoes, etc. 1696 Merchant's Ware-ho. 30 There is two sorts, strip'd and plain, by the Buyers called Bengalls..they are very fine stripes, but are of no great use or service. 1701 Lond. Gaz. No. 3740/3 All Wrought Silks, Bengalls, and Stuffs mixed with Silk. 1755 Johnson Bengal, a sort of thin slight stuff, made of silk and hair, for women's apparel. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. IV. 141 The importation of silks and of Bengals, as shawls were then called, was pronounced to be a curse to the country. |
2. Comb. and
attrib., as
Bengal fire,
flash = Bengal light;
Bengal isinglass = agar-agar;
Bengal light, a kind of firework producing a steady and vivid blue-coloured light, used for signals; also
fig. (see also
quot. 1899);
Bengal quince, the fruit of
ægle Marmelos, belonging to the orange family;
Bengal root (see
quot.);
Bengal silk;
Bengal stripes, striped ginghams, originally brought from Bengal, afterwards manufactured at Paisley, etc.;
Bengal tiger, the tiger proper, so called from its abundance in lower Bengal.
| 1941 J. Cary House Childr. xliv. 191 If you have a sea battle, Harry, we must get you a *Bengal fire—it's the finest thing in the world for a ship blowing up after a battle. |
| 1946 Koestler Thieves in Night 68 In the reddish *bengal flashes which accompanied the detonations the silhouette of the barbed wire emerged. |
| 1791 Aris's Gazette (Birmingham) 5 Sept. 3/5 A *Bengola Light. 1818 in Pall Mall Gaz. (1885) 5 Nov. 4/2 Superior Fireworks... A Bengal light. 1852 Geo. Eliot Lett. (1954) II. 54 Froude is good—writes very judiciously and pleasantly, except that at the end he brings on Bengal lights and goes off in a Carlylian flourish. c 1865 J. Wylde in Circ. Sc. I. 381/1 Used for the manufacture of Bengal lights. 1899 Connorton's Tobacco Brand Directory U.S. 550 Bengal Lights (cigarettes and cheroots). |
| 1866 Treas. Bot. 953 *Bengal Quince, ægle Marmelos. |
| Ibid. 135 *Bengal Root, an old name for the roots of the Yellow Zedoary. |
| 1711 Lond. Gaz. No. 4850/3, 15 Pound of Single E *Bengal Silk. |
| 1875 Ure Dict. Arts I. 336 *Bengal stripes, Ginghams; a kind of cotton cloth woven with coloured stripes, so called from the cottons which we formerly imported from Bengal. |