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 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 ² British  

/ ˈɡʌlɪ /

noun

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

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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

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

Kim said Rinderknecht’s phone first pinged in a small gully near where they believe the fire originated.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026

In training on Friday, Beau Webster practised in the gully position usually occupied by Cameron Green, suggesting Australia could switch their all-rounders.

From BBC ● Jan. 2, 2026

As Inej waited in the gully with the others, she considered all the things that might go wrong.

From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo

In preparation for the storm, the Department for Infrastructure said their teams have been checking and clearing road gullies, monitoring river levels and tidal surges, and deploying a portion of temporary flood defences.

From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2026

People without driveways will be able to have charge points fitted using "cross-pavement gullies" paid for with £25m allocated to councils, she told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.

From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2025

If you time your trip right, you may see what I saw: a localized explosion of wildflowers right next to the road and in the gullies and trails throughout the San Gabriel Mountains.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 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

A few miles farther on they came to gullies and low spots.

From "In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse" by Joseph Marshall III

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

In gullied wastelands, the shriek of tires and the stench of scorched rubber filled entire valleys.

From Time Magazine Archive

Into the wooded, gullied fields around Polly Ray Mountain at Fort Bragg, N.C., 18,000 troops of the Ninth Division moved for maneuvers.

From Time Magazine Archive

The details of Tito's life history were obscure, but the results were plowed deep in Tito's gullied face.

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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• crevasse
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