Benin.
A country in West Africa, formerly Dahomey.
Meaning & usage
A country in West Africa, formerly Dahomey. People's Republic of Benin, from 1975 to 1990
A country in West Africa, formerly Dahomey. Republic of Benin, since 1990
A historical kingdom in West Africa, in present-day Nigeria.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Yoruboid *ú-lí Yoruba ile Yoruba ì- Yoruba bí Proto-Edekiri *ɪ́-nʊ̃́ Proto-Edekiri *ɪ́-lʊ̃́ Yoruba inú Yoruba ibinu Yoruba ile ibinubor. Itsekiri Ubinubor. Portuguese Benimbor. French Béninbor. English Benin Borrowed from French Bénin, from Portuguese Benim, from Itsekiri Ubinu. The term is first documented in the late 1490s upon Portuguese contact with the Itsekiri Kingdom. The etymology is unclear; it appears Benin was always used as an exonym (probably by the Itsekiri and Yoruba) for the Benin Kingdom, which was always referred to as Ẹ̀dó, and older Ìgòdòmigòdò. The leading hypothesis is that the term originally derived from Yoruba ilẹ̀ ìbínú (“land of anger”), which emerges from a folk myth regarding purported founder of the Benin empire, Oranmiyan, who was a Yoruba prince, who referred to the region by this phrase because of his frustration in ruling the land.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.