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Glite Dictionary
snap bean

snap bean

1 2.7
A tender green bean you eat young that breaks easily and has no strings
  • noun
  • /snæp biːn/
  • US
translation icon : judía verde
  • I remembered Merrill mentioning how peaceful it was back here when he came to dig, those years I'd be putting in carrots, potatoes, snap beans, and pumpkins.
  • green snap beans
  • snap beans and potatoes
  • sweet snap beans

It's not quite like Bush beans and pole beans or snap beans and shelling peas or snap snap peas and shelling peas.

Examples

  • Many vegetables that were planted back in spring, such as tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and snap beans, are finishing or have already reached the end of their productive season.

    Blog text (22)

  • Karmanns started haying last week, and as you pass, think of the snap beans.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • ASR has almost 100 different host species, including dry and snap beans.

    Academic text (2006)

  • The girl is probably hoeing the weeds out of her snap beans.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • Also at risk is the $190 million snap bean crop of Florida, Illinois, New York, Oregon, Wisconsin, and other states.

    Academic text (2003)

  • Also showing their stamina are new snap beans developed by the ARS Air Quality Plant Growth and Development Research Unit in Raleigh, North Carolina.

    Academic text (2002)

  • Stewed apples, cornbread, biscuits, snap beans.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • I put in a garden at the end of the month, turning up grass with a hoe in back of the house by the shed, setting in snap beans and summer squash—good food, food to grow babies by.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • She tended a small garden in the backyard, worked it when she got home from the shoe factory: a few rows of snap beans, Irish potatoes, Big Boy tomatoes, turnip greens, and okra.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • You can add snap beans to your stir-fry for extra crunch and flavor.

Synonyms

bean
vssnap bean
512 1.0

An edible seed or pod from plants like peas and lentils used for food

is a specific tender stringless young vegetable pod rather than all seeds
snap
vssnap bean
  • US
4 2.4

A tender green bean that breaks easily and has no string

is the same idea but named slightly differently in common use
green bean
vssnap bean
  • Indian
1 1.0

A small round seed used in Asian cooking, often dried or soaked

is a young whole vegetable pod eaten fresh not the mature seed
French bean
vssnap bean
  • UK
1 2.1

A long thin green vegetable that people eat cooked or raw

is the tender stringless pod that breaks easily rather than just long
yellow bean
vssnap bean
1.6

A long thin vegetable with yellow pods that you eat

is the general tender pod that breaks easily rather than the yellow variety

How Tender

snap bean
  • US
1 2.7
French bean
  • UK
1 2.1
string bean
  • US
7 2.7

Surface Forms

snap bean singular
snap beans plural

Morphology

snap + bean

The meaning 'a tender green bean that breaks easily' is directly derivable from combining 'snap' (to break or snap) with 'bean' (an edible pod), forming a straightforward noun–noun compound describing a type of bean. This modifier+head compositional pattern is common and transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should be able to infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Snap bean gets its name from the way a fresh pod makes a quick 'snap' and breaks easily when you bend or bite it. That's why snap shows the breaking and bean means the vegetable we eat while it is young and tender.