bean

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See also: Bean and bean-

English

lima beans
coffee beans
vanilla beans

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), West Frisian bean (bean), Dutch boon (bean), German Bohne (bean), Danish bønne (bean), Norwegian bønne (bean), Icelandic baun (bean), Latin faba (bean), Russian боб (bob, bean), Serbo-Croatian бо̏б/bȍb. Doublet of fava.

Pronunciation

Noun

bean (plural beans)

  1. Any plant of several genera of the taxonomic family Fabaceae that produces large edible seeds or edible seedpods.
    • 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); .
  2. The large edible seed of such a plant (for example, a broad bean, navy bean, or garbanzo bean).
  3. The edible seedpod of such a plant.
    Green beans, also called French beans, can be pickled and made into pickled beans.
  4. (by extension) The bean-like seed of certain other plants, such as a vanilla bean or (especially) a coffee bean.
  5. (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.
  6. (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.
  7. (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.
  8. (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.
  9. (Britain, slang, archaic) A guinea coin.
  10. (Britain, slang, chiefly in the negative) Money.
    I haven't got a bean.
  11. (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.

Usage notes

Beans and peas are sometimes misidentified (confused with one another); they are both legumes (belonging to the family Fabaceae) and seeds. 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.

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.

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 deliberately with a projectile, especially in 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

Basque

Noun

bean

  1. inessive singular of be

Irish

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

PIE word
*gʷḗn

From Old Irish ben, from Proto-Celtic *benā, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷḗn.

Noun

bean f (genitive singular mná, nominative plural mná)

  1. woman
  2. wife
Declension
Derived terms

Pronoun

bean

  1. one (of women, girls)
    Tá triúr iníonacha agam; tá bean acu trasinscneach.
    I have three daughters; one of them is transgender.

Etymology 2

From a conflation of Old Irish benaid (beat, strike) and boingid (break, cut).

Verb

bean (present analytic beanann, future analytic beanfaidh, verbal noun beant, past participle beanta)

  1. (transitive, intransitive) Alternative form of bain
Inflection

Mutation

Irish mutation
Radical Lenition Eclipsis
bean bhean mbean
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

Middle English

Etymology 1

Verb

bean (third-person singular simple present is, present participle beinge, first-/third-person singular past indicative was, past participle beon)

  1. Alternative form of been (to be)

Etymology 2

Noun

bean (plural beanen)

  1. Alternative form of bene (bean)

Old English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *baunu.

Pronunciation

Noun

bēan f (nominative plural bēana or bēane)

  1. bean (especially the broad bean)

Declension

Descendants

Polish

Etymology

Borrowed from French béjaune.

Pronunciation

Noun

bean m animal

  1. (archaic) greenhorn
    Synonym: żółtodziób
  2. (archaic) rude person
    Synonyms: cham, prostak

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Brückner, Aleksander (1927), “bean”, in Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego [Etymological Dictionary of the Polish Language] (in Polish), Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna: “‘fryc’, cham’, z gwary żakowskiej, łac. beanus z franc. béjaune, ‘żółtodziób’”

Further reading

  • bean in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish ben, from Proto-Celtic *benā, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷḗn.

Pronunciation

Noun

bean f (dative singular bean or mnaoi, genitive singular mnà or mnatha, plural mnathan)

  1. woman, wife

Declension

Derived terms

Mutation

Scottish Gaelic mutation
Radical Lenition
bean bhean
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References

  • Edward Dwelly (1911), “bean”, in Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan [The Illustrated Gaelic–English Dictionary], 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN
  • G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “ben”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

Swedish

Noun

bean

  1. definite singular of bea

West Frisian

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old Frisian bāne, from Proto-West Germanic *baunu.

Pronunciation

Noun

bean c (plural beanen, diminutive beantsje)

  1. bean

Further reading

  • bean”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011