Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To run, as water, with a noise.
  • noun A kind of knife; a sheathknife. See the first extract.
  • noun A channel or hollow worn in the earth by a current of water; a narrow ravine; a ditch; a gutter.
  • noun An iron tram-plate or rail.
  • To wear into a gully or channel; form gullies in.
  • noun A catch-basin.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To wear into a gully or into gullies.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To flow noisily.
  • noun Scot. A large knife.
  • noun A channel or hollow worn in the earth by a current of water; a short deep portion of a torrent's bed when dry.
  • noun engraving A grooved iron rail or tram plate.
  • noun [Obs.] a glutton.
  • noun the opening through which gutters discharge surface water.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A trench, ravine or narrow channel which was worn by water flow, especially on a hillside.
  • noun A small valley.
  • noun UK A drop kerb.
  • noun A road drain.
  • noun cricket A fielding position on the off side about 30 degrees behind square, between the slips and point; a fielder in such a position
  • verb obsolete To flow noisily.
  • noun Scotland A large knife.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun deep ditch cut by running water (especially after a prolonged downpour)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Scots gully, of unknown origin.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Probably related to Middle English golet "ravine, throat," French goulet, Latin gula "throat".

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Examples

  • BILL EVANS. U.S. LIFE S.VING INS.RUCTOR: Rip current is a current of water that's flowing from shore back out to sea and is formed from the breaking waves forcing water over the sand bar into what we call the gully, which is the deeper portion right offshore.

    CNN Transcript May 31, 2004 2004

  • There's not a proper foundation there, the gully is just stone and dirt.

    Tropical Storm Nicole 2010 Could Skirt Florida AP 2010

  • The NVA were crossing the gully from the south to the high ground on the north side of the gully.

    Todd, Robert J. 1967

  • To my belief, that gully is the top dressing of a dried up underground watercourse.

    Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land 1915

  • These barrancas (the word literally means a ravine or mountain gully) are two mountains, one behind the other, which it is necessary to cross by a narrow path, that looks like a road for goats.

    Life in Mexico, During a Residence of Two Years in That Country Frances Erskine Inglis 1843

  • The name gully apparently derives from the more general meaning of a narrow channel or gorge between ‘point†™ and slips.

    The Times of India 2010

  • An extreme form of soil erosion, in its best incarnation a gully is a difficult-to-discern and entirely unproductive seam in a field, one cut by the fierce flow of water and subsequently filled in with useless silt.

    MY EMPIRE OF DIRT Manny Howard 2010

  • An extreme form of soil erosion, in its best incarnation a gully is a difficult-to-discern and entirely unproductive seam in a field, one cut by the fierce flow of water and subsequently filled in with useless silt.

    MY EMPIRE OF DIRT Manny Howard 2010

  • An extreme form of soil erosion, in its best incarnation a gully is a difficult-to-discern and entirely unproductive seam in a field, one cut by the fierce flow of water and subsequently filled in with useless silt.

    MY EMPIRE OF DIRT Manny Howard 2010

  • An extreme form of soil erosion, in its best incarnation a gully is a difficult-to-discern and entirely unproductive seam in a field, one cut by the fierce flow of water and subsequently filled in with useless silt.

    MY EMPIRE OF DIRT Manny Howard 2010

Comments

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  • The passage or alley between two terraced houses. In Sheffield it's a gennel.

    February 26, 2010

  • In the NW, a ginnel or jigger.

    February 26, 2010

  • knife:

    One cut with my sea-gully and the HISPANIOLA would go humming down the tide.
    Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 23

    February 10, 2019