bean
- noun
- /biːn/
- Slang
- After that incident, he kept rubbing his bean as if it would make the pain go away.
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Watch on YouTubeNo, I just think it's too soon for my mind, my little bean mind process.
- No, I just think it's too soon for my mind, my little bean mind process.
Examples
-
Hey, why don't you just back off, string bean?
-
Was he concerned that I'd been spilling the beans to the police?
Fiction book (1995) -
1776, wasn't it, old bean?
-
Have fun, old bean.
-
So long, old bean.
-
Cool beans.
-
But they're about to close the betting - and I haven't a bean.
-
Everyone realizes that I don't know beans about electronics, and neither does Joanna.
Fiction book (1996) -
He bumped his head, and now he's complaining about his bean.
-
Don't worry about your bean; it's just a little scratch.
Synonyms
The rounded top part of something, like a bone or tool
A person's head
A playful word for a person's head
A person's head in informal speech
The top part of a person's body that people mean as a joke or in informal talk
A person's head, used informally in British English
Compounds
- Offensive
A person who pays too much attention to small money details and misses the big picture
A large red seed shaped like a kidney that people cook and eat or the plant that grows it
A small red-brown bean from East Asia often used in Japanese and Chinese sweets and flour
- US
An edible root that looks like a nut and was an important food for some Native American people
A small insect that eats the leaves of bean plants and often damages bean crops
- Specialized
A fragrant black seed from a South American tree that gives perfumes and food a warm, sweet smell
A small reddish-brown bean used in Chinese and Japanese cooking, often in sweet dishes
- Indian
A tropical climbing plant with edible pods that have four raised edges and thick edible roots
- UK
A dark brown seed from a West African plant that is poisonous and used in traditional medicine and rituals
A large tropical shrub with big hand-shaped leaves and spiny seed pods that give seeds used to make castor oil
- Specialized
A bushy tropical plant grown for animal feed with long pods of white seeds
A plant from Europe that produces large flat seeds eaten by people and fed to animals
- Specialized
A dry-land shrub or small tree with spiral seed pods from the US Southwest and Mexico
- US
A climbing plant from the southwestern United States and Mexico that makes small edible beans
A long pod from the carob tree with sweet pulp used like chocolate and as animal feed
- Specialized
A shrub or small tree with blue flowers and red seeds that are poisonous to people and animals
Surface Forms
Etymology
Bean used as a slang word for 'head' likely began as a simple picture: a head seen as a small round seed, so people started calling the head a 'bean'; a helpful way to remember this is that 'use your bean' means 'use your head'.