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

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

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

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

Baker's first wicket, Rachin Ravindra edging to gully, came in his seventh over.

From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2026

But Mitchell and Blundell reprised the partnership that was so successful for the Black Caps here four years ago, helped by Mitchell being put down at leg gully at Cox off Fisher.

From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2026

Inej signaled to Matthias, who leapt out of the gully to join them.

From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo

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

The group, which also includes an off-duty nurse and a marine biologist, are spending their Saturday carefully searching ravines and gullies that hardly anyone ever reaches for signs of a missing hillwalker.

From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2023

In a few heartbeats, the gullies were suddenly filled with warriors.

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

That weird first night, 27 big C-47 transports hauled their double tows of gliders up to a rough, gullied clearing in the jungle.

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

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

The buggy rolled between gullied slopes of red clay.

From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns

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 Owen, R. Emmett (Robert Emmett)

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 Goodrich, Charles Landon

Related Words

• chasm
• crevasse
• culvert
• trench