弁当

• (honorific) お弁当(べんとう), 御弁当(おべんとう) (o-bentō)

/bentau/ → /bentɔː/ → /bentoː/

Probably a variant of 面筒 (めんとう, mentō, “tub for distributing portions of food”) (obsolete), from 面 (めん, men, “face”) + 筒 (とう, tō, “bucket, tub”) (originally referring to a tub for washing the face), both from Middle Chinese [Term?].^[1]

The use of 弁 for ben is an example of phonetic ateji (当て字), due to 便 having another sense of "human excrement'.

• (Tokyo) べんとー [bèńtóꜜò] (Nakadaka – [3])^[2]
• IPA^(key): [bẽ̞nto̞ː]

弁(べん)当(とう) • (bentō) ^{←べんたう (bentau)?}

1. food brought on the go
2. bento (takeaway lunch served in a box)
3. (colloquial) grains of rice stuck to one's face after eating
4. (law) synonym of 執行猶予 (shikkō yūyo): a suspended sentence

• 弁当(べんとう)箱(ばこ) (bentō-bako)
• 駅弁(えきべん) (ekiben)
• キャラ弁(べん) (kyaraben), キャラ弁当(べんとう) (kyara-bentō)

• 弁当(べんとう)を使(つか)う (bentō o tsukau, “use a bento → eat a bento”)

• → Cantonese: 便當 / 便当 (bin⁶ dong³)
• → English: bento, bentō
• → Hokkien: 便當 / 便当 (piān-tong)
• → Indonesian: bento
• → Korean: 벤토 (bento)
• → Mandarin: 便當 / 便当 (biàndāng)
  • → English: biandang
• → Russian: бэнто́ (bɛntó), бэ́нто (bɛ́nto)

弁当(べんと) • (bento) 

1. (dialectal, Kagoshima) bento (takeaway lunch served in a box)

• 2002, Ineko Kondō; Fumi Takano; Mary E Althaus; et. al., Shogakukan Progressive Japanese-English Dictionary, Third Edition, Tokyo: Shōgakukan, →ISBN.