बहनBehenSister
Behen (बहन) means sister in Hindi — a female sibling born of the same parents. Like bhai, the word stretches to cover cousins and close family friends, but its core meaning on any family tree is your sister. You will also see it transliterated as bahan or bahin.
Who is your Behen?
A behen is the counterpart of the brother in North India's twin sibling festivals: she ties the rakhi on Raksha Bandhan and performs the tilak on Bhai Dooj, and in return tradition assigns her brother lifelong duty as her protector and her link back to her birth home after marriage. Folk songs about a behen leaving for her sasural — her married home — are a staple of the wedding repertoire. The relationship is idealized as the purest in the family: fierce squabbles in childhood, unshakeable loyalty in adulthood.
How it's used
An elder sister is addressed as didi almost universally, while behen appears when stating the relationship, or as behenji when respectfully addressing someone's sister. For example: "Meri chhoti behen mujhse roz phone par baat karti hai." — "My younger sister talks to me on the phone every day."
Behen vs similar terms
As with brothers, Hindi marks female cousins by origin rather than a separate word: chacheri behen is your paternal uncle's daughter, mameri behen your maternal uncle's daughter, and so on. Your own sister is your sagi behen. Didi, by contrast, is not a different relative — just the respectful address for an elder sister.
Frequently asked questions
What does Behen mean in Hindi?
Behen means sister in Hindi — a female sibling. With prefixes it also names female cousins (chacheri behen, mameri behen), and behenji serves as a respectful, if somewhat formal, address for unrelated women.
What is the difference between Behen and Didi?
Behen is the kinship word for sister; didi is the honorific used to address an elder sister directly. You would say meri behen when describing her to others, but call her didi to her face if she is older than you.
Related terms
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