wild bean

American  

noun

1. groundnut.

2. any of several other leguminous plants, especially of the genus Strophostyles.

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Etymology

Origin of wild bean

An Americanism dating back to 1770–80

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

wild bean

But businessmen are already harvesting and processing the wild bean, and demand is strong.

From Time Magazine Archive

Everywhere the flowering boneset, and the rose-bloom of the wild bean.

From Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Whitman, Walt

The wild bean is found in all parts of the valleys where the land is moist and rich.

From The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c. by Simmonds, P. L.

Among these is a wild bean which equals in flavor any domestic bean that I have ever tasted.

From Indian Boyhood by Eastman, Charles Alexander

At midnight the leaves of the ground-nut.and wild bean "are hardly to be recognized in their queer antics," says William Hamilton Gibson.

From Wild Flowers An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and Their Insect Visitors by Blanchan, Neltje