dabbawalla
dabbawalla noun: a deliveryperson in Mumbai, India who collects freshly cooked food in lunchboxes from workers' residences (mostly in the suburbs), delivers it to their respective workplaces, and returns the empty containers.
Noun
dabbawalla (plural dabbawallas)
- A deliveryperson in Mumbai, India who collects freshly cooked food in lunchboxes from workers' residences (mostly in the suburbs), delivers it to their respective workplaces, and returns the empty containers.
- “There is a service called FedEx that is similar to ours — but they don’t deliver lunch,” said one dabbawalla, Dhondu Kondaji Chowdhury.2007 May 29, Saritha Rai, “In India, Grandma Cooks, They Deliver”, in New York Times
dabbawalla meaning in Hindi
dabbawalla in Hindi
- a dabbawalla
- डब्बावाला ḍabbāvālā
Forms of dabbawalla
| plural | dabbawallas |
|---|---|
| alternative form | dabbawala |
| alternative form | dabbawallah |
Origin of dabbawalla
Borrowed from Marathi डबेवाला (ḍabevālā), Hindi डब्बावाला (ḍabbāvālā), literally "person with a box".
Questions about dabbawalla
- What does dabbawalla mean?
- Dabbawalla means a deliveryperson in Mumbai, India who collects freshly cooked food in lunchboxes from workers' residences (mostly in the suburbs), delivers it to their respective workplaces, and returns the empty containers.
- What is dabbawalla in Hindi?
- Dabbawalla in Hindi is डब्बावाला (ḍabbāvālā). See Dabbawalla meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is dabbawalla?
- Dabbawalla is a noun.
- What is the plural of dabbawalla?
- The plural of dabbawalla is dabbawallas.
Words near dabbawalla in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dabbawalla (page history and authors); डब्बावाला (Hindi) (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “dabbawalla.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dabbawalla. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.