What does gully mean?
A gully is a channel or ravine cut into the ground by running water, typically long, narrow, and steep-sided. It is a useful word when the important feature is not merely a depression but the path that water has forced through soil or rock: a hillside gully, a dry gully, or a gully carved after a storm. In American English, gully can also refer to a gutter or drainage channel, while British English commonly uses it for an eroded watercourse. The related verb, gully, means to form such a channel or to wear one deeper, as when rain gullies a slope. The word is ordinary rather than literary, but it has a precise descriptive force: a gully is water’s incision in the landscape. Its history also links an apparently modern geomorphological term to the Latin word for throat, through the older idea of a narrow passage.
A narrow channel or ravine cut into the ground by running water, often with steep sides; in some American contexts, a gutter or drain.
"Flash floods swept through the gully after the storm."
Common in descriptions of landscapes, drainage systems, and erosion. The meaning “gutter” is especially associated with American English.
To form a gully in the ground or wear away the ground by erosion, usually as a transitive action.
"Heavy rain gullied the hillside."
Less common than the noun and normally used transitively.
The standard plural of the noun, pronounced with a final /z/ sound.
"Rainwater carved deep gullies across the hillside."
A gully is water’s narrow signature, cut into the land one storm and season at a time.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does gully come from?
Gully entered Middle English through Anglo-French or Old French gouille, used for a channel or narrow watercourse; the French word is generally traced to Medieval Latin gula, ultimately Latin gula, “throat.” The sense developed from a narrow passage or channel to the modern geographical sense of a ravine cut by running water, and later also to the verb meaning to erode or form a channel.
Related word forms
How gully is actually used
The noun is common in descriptions of geography, drainage, and erosion. The verb is less frequent and normally transitive; in American English, “gutter” may be a more familiar term for a roadside drainage channel.
Easily confused with gully
A gully is a channel or ravine in the ground, whereas a gullet is the throat or the passage from the mouth to the stomach.