This is the people-use of the word, read by a British ear. The grammar is the same as the American noun entry: it is countable, and the plural is Asians. The difference is the first picture. In Britain the picture usually starts in South Asia. The same lean is recorded in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda, where Asians has long meant families with South Asian roots. Because the first picture moves from country to country, the plural on its own can be read two ways in an international text. Writers who need to be exact usually name the region or the country instead.

This is the same word doing the same job as the American entry, and the literal meaning does not change: it says something comes from Asia. What changes is the listener. In Britain, Asian shop, Asian food or Asian music usually makes people think first of South Asia — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and their neighbours. So the same three words can land differently in London and in Los Angeles, and that is worth knowing before you use them in writing. If you need to be exact, name the place instead: Japanese noodles, Thai curry, Korean drama. Like the other adjective entry, it keeps its capital A and has no comparative form.

Here the same label moves from things to people. Asian food means the food comes from Asia; an Asian means the person, or the person's family, came from there. The word is countable, and the plural is Asians. It stays general on purpose: it tells you the part of the world, not the country. Which part a listener pictures depends on where they are. In the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the first picture is usually East or Southeast Asia, and sometimes South Asia too. In Britain the first picture is usually South Asia, and that use has its own entry here. In everyday speech you will very often hear the adjective with a noun instead — Asian students, Asian families, Asian friends. Both patterns are common.

Asian points at one place on the map and says: this comes from there. You put it in front of a noun — Asian food, Asian art, Asian countries, Asian students. Asia is huge, so the word stays general. It never names one single country. What it does carry is a first picture in the listener's mind. That first picture is not the same everywhere. In American English it usually starts in East and Southeast Asia — Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam and their neighbours. So an American who reads Asian restaurant often expects food from that side of the map. British English leans the other way, toward South Asia, and that use is written up in its own entry here. The word keeps its capital A, because it is built on the place name Asia. It has no comparative form: people do not say more Asian to mean more from Asia.