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). Hence,
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, &c.
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 light, a kind of firework producing a steady and vivid blue-colored light, used for signals; 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.
c. 1865. J. Wylde, in Circ. Sc., I. 381/1. Used for the manufacture of *Bengal lights.
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.
