Word.ws English Dictionary

benne

benne noun: sesame.

Noun

benne (uncountable)

  1. (attributive) Sesame.
    • benne oil; benne seed
    • Benne (sesame) seeds were secretly brought to America on the slave ships by black women who had used them in their native cooking. Benne seed cookies and candy were made by black cooks in Charleston and other lowcountry South Carolina locations.2003, Carole Marsh, The Kitchen House: How Yesterday's Black Women Created Today's Most Popular & Famous American Foods!, page 15

Proper noun capitalized: Benne

Benne (plural Bennes)

  1. A surname.

Examples of benne in a sentence

  • For example, Rosanna Williams recounted that her African-born father would "plant mostly benne and rice." Emma Hunter also remembered that her grandmother planted benne.2010, Frederick C. Knight, Working the Diaspora: The Impact of African Labor on the Anglo-American World, 1650—1850, page 62:
  • Indeed, a complex benne cookery adapted from African practices was recorded.2013, David S. Shields, “Chapter 3: Prospecting for Oil”, in John T. Edge, Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt, Ted Ownby, editors, The Larder: Food...

Forms of benne

pluralBennes

Origin of benne

From Malay bene, or possibly from Wolof or Eastern Maninkakan.

Borrowed from North German Benne, a variant of the surname Benn. Borrowed also from French Benne, a metonymic occupational surname for the maker or driver of a cart.

Questions about benne

What does benne mean?
Benne means sesame.
How do you use benne in a sentence?
For example, Rosanna Williams recounted that her African-born father would "plant mostly benne and rice." Emma Hunter also remembered that her grandmother planted benne.
What part of speech is benne?
Benne can be a noun or a proper noun.

Words near benne in the dictionary

  1. benmoxin
  2. Benn
  3. benna
  4. bennah
  5. Bennathan
  6. benne
  7. Bennefield
  8. Bennefields
  9. Bennelong
  10. benner
  11. benners

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: benne (page history and authors); Benne (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “benne.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/benne. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.