Meanings
plural gully beans
- A fruit of a wild eggplant or susumber plant (Solanum torvum).
Preserves here featured a number of products in brine, namely gully beans, corn, carrot and breadfruit. Other exhibits here included pineapple, cucumber, pickle, castor oil, banana, vinegar, pepper pot soup in bottles.
1977, Farmer2 more examples
They go up into the hills to pick gully beans, up into deep green spicy woods with the sun hot in dappled patches on the men's glistening backs, with strange birds screeching and goats neighing loudly in the afternoon air.
2008, Jane Covernton, Cutlass Time, →ISBN, page 187“Steam fish, bananas, dumplings, gully beans and okra.” “You cooked that kind of food on a Sunday? Was I so fast asleep that you couldn't wake me up and ask me what I wanted? Gully beans, what's that?” “Susumber, it's good to cook with ...”
2016, Austin Mitchell, Uptown Lovers, →ISBN
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
So called because the bushes grow wild, especially in gullies, and the bean-like fruits are used to season certain foods.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
gully bean. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gully%20bean
“gully bean.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gully%20bean. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “gully bean,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gully%20bean.
Source: gully bean on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.