string bean
1
6.4
- noun
- /strɪŋ biːn/
- Slang
:
flaco
- Everyone joked that he was a string bean because of his long legs and thin frame.
Examples
-
He lived across the street with his string bean, Carla?
Fiction book (1990) -
You're a string bean, by gum!
Fiction book (1997) -
You've shot up, string bean.
-
A string bean man.
Fiction book (1998) -
"String bean type.
Fiction book (1998) -
String bean type.
Fiction book (1998) -
Inger went gooey at the sight of him, about sixteen then and built like her, long but not string-bean overgrown.
Fiction book (1998) -
But she sort of slung her string bean of a body over to him, and for a split second I thought she was going to hug him, thought he was going to respond by hugging her, but that's not what happened.
Fiction book (1993) -
Standing next to her friends, he looked like a tall string bean in his baggy clothes.
-
As a teenager, he was a real string bean, tall and slim compared to his peers.
Synonyms
4
7.5
A very tall thin person who looks awkward
How Thin
- Slang
1
6.4
4
2.1
Surface Forms
Morphology
The person sense is a visual metaphor based on the long, thin vegetable 'string bean' so a learner who knows 'string' and 'bean' can plausibly infer that it describes someone very thin (and often tall). This is not strictly literal composition but a predictable, cross-linguistically common metaphor, so the relation is partially clear but requires metaphorical mapping.
Etymology
String bean is used jokingly for a very tall, thin person because they look like a long string or a thin bean, so the image explains why it means 'very tall and thin'.