What does bangalore mean?
Bangalore, known officially since 2014 as Bengaluru, is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka and one of India's largest and most dynamic cities. Situated on the Deccan Plateau in the country's south, it grew from a modest fortress town founded in the sixteenth century into a major metropolis, earning its reputation as India's technology hub and often being dubbed the 'Silicon Valley of India.' In everyday international usage, the name 'Bangalore' persists alongside the newer official form 'Bengaluru,' which reflects the city's Kannada heritage. Separately, the word carries a distinctive military meaning: the bangalore torpedo, a long metal tube packed with explosive that soldiers push through barbed wire or minefields to blast a path, first developed around the time of the First World War. Thus the word spans two very different worlds — geography and engineering warfare.
A large city in southern India, capital of the state of Karnataka, officially renamed Bengaluru in 2014.
"Our flight to Bangalore departed late because of heavy rain on the Deccan Plateau."
A bangalore torpedo: a long, cylindrical explosive charge pushed under obstacles such as barbed wire to destroy them.
"The engineers assembled a bangalore from sections of pipe before the assault."
This sense is specific to military terminology.
As a proper noun naming a single city, 'Bangalore' does not take a plural; pluralization would apply only loosely to the military devices ('bangalores').
"Two bangalores were laid side by side to widen the breach."
Legend says Bangalore got its name from 'benda kaal-ooru' — 'the town of boiled beans' — supposedly served to a hungry king by an old woman.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bangalore
The name Bangalore derives from a Kannada place name, popularly linked to the phrase 'bengaḷūru' or the legend of 'benda kaal-ūru,' meaning 'town of boiled beans,' said to have been named by a medieval ruler who was offered boiled beans there; the exact linguistic derivation is debated, so this account should be treated as traditional rather than established fact. The city's anglicized spelling 'Bangalore' arose during the British colonial period. Its official renaming as Bengaluru occurred in 2014. No widely recognized cognate words share its root outside Indian place-name traditions.
How bangalore is actually used
'Bangalore' remains the common English name internationally, while 'Bengaluru' is the official local name; the military sense applies specifically to the explosive device, not the city, and appears mainly in military contexts and histories of twentieth-century warfare.
Easily confused with bangalore
Bengaluru is the official Kannada-language name of the very same city, adopted formally in 2014, whereas 'Bangalore' is the older anglicized name still widely used internationally.