gully

¹ American  

[guhl-ee] / ˈgʌl i /

noun

• gullies
  plural

1. a small valley or ravine originally worn away by running water and serving as a drainageway after prolonged heavy rains.

   Synonyms:

   watercourse, defile, gorge, gulch

2. a ditch or gutter.

3. Cricket.

   1. the position of a fielder between point and slips.

   2. the fielder occupying this position.

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verb (used with object)

gullied, gullying

1. to make gullies in.

2. to form (channels) by the action of water.

adjective

1. Slang. of or relating to the environment, culture, or life experience in poor urban neighborhoods; vulgar, raw, or authentic; ghetto: Keepin’ it gully, for real!

   Does your mama know what you’re up to on these gully street corners all night?

   Keepin’ it gully, for real!

gully ² American  

[guhl-ee, gool-ee] / ˈgʌl i, ˈgʊl i /

Or gulley

noun

Scot. and North England.

• gullies
  plural

1. a knife, especially a large kitchen or butcher knife.

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gully ¹ British  

/ ˈɡʌlɪ /

noun

1. a large knife, such as a butcher's knife

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gully ² British  

/ ˈɡʌlɪ /

noun

1. a channel or small valley, esp one cut by heavy rainwater

2. a small bush-clad valley

3. a deep, wide fissure between two buttresses in a mountain face, sometimes containing a stream or scree

4. cricket

   1. a fielding position between the slips and point

   2. a fielder in this position

5. either of the two channels at the side of a tenpin bowling lane

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verb

1. (tr) to make (channels) in (the ground, sand, etc)

gully Scientific  

/ gŭl′ē /

1. A narrow, steep-sided channel formed in loose earth by running water. A gully is usually dry except after periods of heavy rainfall or after the melting of snow or ice.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• gullies
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of gully¹

First recorded in 1530–40; apparently a variant of gullet, with -y replacing French -et

Origin of gully²

First recorded in 1575–85; origin uncertain

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Explanation

A gully is a deep valley that's formed by water that runs across land and wears it away. Most gullies form along hillsides. When a stream or runoff from a heavy rainfall erodes the land and forms a ravine or ditch, the result is a gully. The origin of the word is unclear, but it may come from the Middle English golet, "water channel." If you hear someone use the somewhat old fashioned term "gully washer," they're talking about a torrential rain storm — one that's heavy enough to form a gully.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

gully gullies gullied gullying

O’Brien said cellphone location records placed him in a brush-filled gully about 20 feet from where investigators determined the fire began.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2026

Tuesday a California National Guard plane spotted an “anomaly” near the bottom of an east-facing gully off the summit.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2026

As he approached the Alligator Hole swimming area, his vehicle slid off the road and became stuck on a mound of dirt 60 feet above a gully near Big Chico Creek, witnesses said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026

Occasionally wayward, he produced a lifter to have Rachin Ravindra caught at gully for his maiden Test wicket, leaping into the air with delight.

From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2026

They didn’t find another gully, but Salvador did see an old, abandoned car off the road.

From "Lupita Mañana" by Patricia Beatty

Then came a flash of light so bright that in the dead of night they could briefly see out their window the rocks and gullies of the San Gabriel foothills behind their house.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2025

We climbed up into the hills, over rocks and gullies, until a valley opened out below us.

From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2024

Channel landforms called gullies, previously thought to be formed exclusively by liquid water, can also be formed by the action of evaporating CO2 ice.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 14, 2024

“Access couloirs that used to last deep into August are falling apart,” Volken added, describing the steep, narrow gullies that climbers often must ascend.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 4, 2023

He ran up and down hills, over the desert, through gullies.

From "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand

If peaches were touted as a cure for Georgia’s “sorry, washed-out anemic gullied hillsides” at the fin de siècle, than kudzu was seen as the panacea after the Great Depression.

From Slate ● Aug. 28, 2021

Instead of gullied hillsides and slopes ... it would show terraces; alternations of tilled land and grasslands; new forests springing up in belts and patches.

From Time Magazine Archive

There is many a gullied hillside in our south eastern States today that is being plowed by a scrub mule, trying to raise cotton in competition with Oscar Johnston's mechanized Pine Delta plantation.

From Time Magazine Archive

Behind he left a widow, two former wives, three children, a host of disgruntled backers and oil royalty rights on 2,538 gullied, sun-scorched acres in California's Kettleman hills.

From Time Magazine Archive

The land was gullied and eroded and barren.

From "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

There it had crumbled the brink of the Head away, the water gullying year after year a deeper and broader channel, until now the slanting gutter began a hundred yards back from the brink.

From Sheila of Big Wreck Cove A Story of Cape Cod by R. Emmett (Robert Emmett) Owen

Removing the free water enables the soil to absorb more readily rain water falling on the surface and therefore checks surface wash and the gullying of fields.

From The First Book of Farming by Charles Landon Goodrich

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Related Words

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