bento

Where does the word "bento" come from? It comes from Japanese bento, and was adopted directly into English (1900s).

Bento’s story begins in Japanese: bento meant “a boxed meal.” A single-portion boxed meal. It reached English by 1900s as bento. Japanese lunchboxes go back to the Edo period, when 'makunouchi bento' were eaten in theatre intervals; Richard Cocks, the East India Company's merchant at Hirado, used the word in his diary as early as 1616, though it only became common in English in the 1900s. Today, bento means a single-portion boxed meal, typically Japanese, with compartments for different foods.

1. Stage 1 · Japanese · medieval bento "a boxed meal", a single-portion boxed meal.
2. Stage 2 · English · 1900s bento "a boxed meal with compartments for different foods", Japanese lunchboxes go back to the Edo period, when 'makunouchi bento' were eaten in theatre intervals; Richard Cocks, the East India Company's merchant at Hirado, used the word in his diary as early as 1616, though it only became common in English in the 1900s.