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bean

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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See also: Bean and bean-

English

Etymology

From Middle English bene, from Old English bēan, from Proto-West Germanic *baunu, from Proto-Germanic *baunō (“bean”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰabʰ- (“bean”). Cognate with Scots bene, bein (“bean”), North Frisian buan (“bean”), Saterland Frisian Boone (“bean”), West Frisian bean, beanne (“bean”), Dutch boon (“bean”), German Bohne (“bean”), Luxembourgish Boun (“bean”), Danish bønne (“bean”), Faroese bøn, bøna (“bean”), Icelandic baun (“bean”), Norwegian Bokmål bønne (“bean”), Norwegian Nynorsk bauna, baune, bogna, bønne, Swedish böna (“bean”), Irish pónaire (“bean”), Manx poanrey (“bean”), Scottish Gaelic pònair (“bean”), Latin faba (“bean”), Russian боб (bob, “bean”), Serbo-Croatian бо̏б/bȍb. Doublet of fava.

Pronunciation

Noun

bean (plural beans)

  2. Any plant of several genera of the taxonomic family Fabaceae that produces large edible seeds or edible seedpods.
    Coordinate term: pea
    • 2004, T. N. Shivenanda, B. R. V. Iyengar, Phosphorus Management in French Bean (Phaseolus Vulgaris L.), Ramdane Dris, S. Mohan Jain (editors), Production Practices and Quality Assessment of Food Crops, Volume 2: Plant Mineral Nutrition and Pesticide Management, page 79,
      Beans are a large group of leguminous vegetables that serve as a main source of proteins in human diet. This group comprises several species and some of them are Adzuki bean (Vigna angularis); Broad bean (Vicia faba); Cluster bean (Cyamposis tetragonoloba); French bean (Phaseolus vulgaris); […] .
  4. The large edible seed of such a plant (for example, a broad bean, navy bean, or garbanzo bean).
  6. The edible seedpod of such a plant.
    Green beans, also called French beans, can be pickled.
  8. (by extension) The bean-like seed of certain other plants, such as a vanilla bean or (especially) a coffee bean.
  10. (by extension) An object resembling a pea or bean in shape, often made from plastic or styrofoam and used in large numbers as packing material or as stuffing for beanbags and similar items.
  12. (slang) The head or brain.
    Synonym: noggin
    • 1959, Maxwell Droke, You and the World to Come, page 173:
      Now, there was a perfectly sound forecast for you. Certainly a case of using the old bean. The surmise was perfectly logical.
    • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter XI and XV:
      I saw her quiver and kept a wary eye on the ginger ale bottle. But even if she had raised it and brought it down on [my] bean, I couldn't have been more stunned than I was by the words that left her lips.
      [...]
      Well, as I say, it was from his fertile bean that the idea sprang.
  14. (slang) The human clitoris.
    • 2010, Cynthia W. Gentry, Dana Fredst, What Women Really Want in Bed: The Surprising Secrets Women Wish Men Knew about Sex, Quiver, published 2010, →ISBN, page 64:
      For one, don't stage a full-frontal assault on her bean.
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:bean.
  16. (slang, often endearing) A person; especially, a baby.
    • 2000 April 9, Richard G Cheek, “Apologies, DimWit Dana”, in talk.politics.guns (Usenet):
      Sparky is a good bean, even if he is a carpet-bagging bean at that.
    • 2002 March 21, Yena, "oh my bloody god boys!", microsoft.public.xbox, Usenet:
      i dont want boid (whoever said that) he is mean. boid is a mean bean.
    • 2007, Alex Bradley, Hot Lunch, Penguin, →ISBN:
      "Good, because we like you. You're okay. You're a good bean." "I never thought I'd be friends with a cheerleader," I said.
  18. (British, slang, archaic) A guinea coin or sovereign.
  20. (British, slang, chiefly in the negative) Money.
    I haven't got a bean.
  22. (Java programming language) Clipping of JavaBean.
    • 2017, Iuliana Cosmina, Rob Harrop, Chris Schaefer, Clarence Ho, Pro Spring 5, 5th edition, Apress, →ISBN, page 131:
      The singerOne bean has values for both the name and age properties, so it passes through the init() method with absolutely no changes.
  23. (slang) Any form of tablet, especially benzedrine (benny).
    • 2022, Sean Thor Conroe, Fuccboi‎, Hachette, →ISBN:
      Once the bean kicked in I started wilding.
  24. (colloquial, chiefly in the plural) A toe bean.

Usage notes

Beans and peas are sometimes misidentified (confused with one another); they are both legumes (belonging to the family Fabaceae) and seeds. Peas are a type of bean with smaller, round seeds in the pod, in contrast to the oval or kidney-shaped seeds usually referred to as beans. Because both terms are applied to a wide range of different legumes, the distinction is not always clear: garbanzo bean is a synonym of chickpea.

The word bean has referred to a wide class of seeds since pre-Columbian times (when only the Eurasian types were known to Germanic language speakers), but, after Columbian contact, it was extended to other seeds belonging to the New World genus Phaseolus (runner beans, lima beans, and so on; see bean § Terminology for details). The fruits or seeds of some other non-Fabaceae plants (e.g., coffee beans, cocoa beans, vanilla beans, castor beans) are also referred to as beans, because of their resemblance to beans as named in the stricter sense.

Hyponyms

software: JavaBeans

Derived terms

Descendants

  • → Fiji Hindi: biin

Translations

Verb

bean (third-person singular simple present beans, present participle beaning, simple past and past participle beaned)

  1. (chiefly baseball) To hit with a projectile, especially a deliberately aimed blow to the head.
    The pitcher beaned the batter, rather than letting him hit another home run.
    • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter IX and XI:
      Though I shall have to exercise an iron self-restraint to keep me from beaning that pie-faced little hornswoggler Mrs Bertram Wooster, nee Wickham, with the shaker.
      [...]
      dudgeon might easily lead her to reach for the ginger ale bottle and bean me with it.

Further reading

Anagrams

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Basque

Noun

bean

  1. inessive singular of be

Gagauz

Pronoun

bean (definite accusative beni, plural biz)

  1. obsolete spelling of bän

Further reading

  • Ciachir, Mihail (1938), “bean”, in Dicționar gagauzo (tiurco)–român pentru gagauzii din Basarabia (in Romanian), Chișinău, page 14

Irish

Middle English

Old English

Polish

Scottish Gaelic

Swedish

West Frisian

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