Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small ravine, especially one cut by a torrent.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To swallow greedily.
  • To fall heavily.
  • noun A swallowing or devouring.
  • noun A glutton; a fat, stupid fellow.
  • noun A heavy fall.
  • noun A gorge; a ravine; any narrow valley or ravine of small dimensions and steep sides.
  • noun A long, narrow, deep depression of the sea-bottom.

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

  • transitive verb obsolete To swallow greedily; to gulp down.
  • noun obsolete Act of gulching or gulping.
  • noun obsolete A glutton.
  • noun A ravine, or part of the deep bed of a torrent when dry; a gully.

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

  • verb obsolete To swallow greedily; to gulp down.
  • noun obsolete An act of gulching or gulping.
  • noun obsolete A glutton
  • noun A narrow V-shaped valley with a stream running through it.

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

  • noun a narrow gorge with a stream running through it

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Perhaps from dialectal gulch, to gush, (of land) to sink in, from Middle English gulchen, to drink greedily, to spew.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English gulchen ("to gulp")

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Examples

  • For miles the road winds up the gulch, which is almost devoid of timber, amid piled-up rocks and debris, bleached and blistered by the sun's fierce rays; the gulch itself being literally stripped to "bedrock."

    A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country Thomas Dykes Beasley

  • 'By the way,' said Morgan, 'the name of the gulch is a corruption; it should have been called

    Can Such Things Be Bierce, Ambrose, 1842-1914? 1909

  • After the burning glare on the dry, sandy soil of the town, which, in its barren lack of grass and trees, stared back at the sun like a lidless, lashless eye, the cool shadows of the pines in the gulch were a refreshing change.

    In Blue Creek Cañon Anna Chapin Ray 1905

  • By noon the little stream in the gulch was a torrent, and before night patches of bare ground began to appear.

    The Voyage of the Rattletrap Hayden Carruth 1897

  • 'By the way, 'said Morgan,' the name of the gulch is a corruption; it should have been called "MacGregor's."

    Can Such Things Be 1893

  • This word gulch is applied to the peculiarly abrupt, short ravines, which are a characteristic feature in Californian more than in any other mountains.

    The Golden Dream Adventures in the Far West 1859

  • TOM FRATANATO (ph), RETIRED HAWAII POLICE OFFICER: Yeah, in Wai - Hai (ph), that's just about a mile north of Lapahoi-hoi (ph) town, the gulch, which is the Lapahoi-hoi (ph) gulch, the landslide took out the water lines, which supply Waipunalai (ph), Malka (ph) and Waipunalai (ph) Makai, the camps down in Makai.

    CNN Transcript Oct 15, 2006 2006

  • There was only one of the party who had a family, that was my brother, the doctor, and as we all thought that we had a good thing, my brother concluded that he would go home and fix up his affairs this winter and bring his family out here in the spring, and he agreed to keep our finding a secret from everyone but his own family, but it seems that he did not keep his word but spread the news of our luck broadcast as soon as he struck the first white settlement, and the waste and destruction which you saw all along the trail from Clear creek to the gulch are the effects of his folly, although I believe that there are other mines as good as this in other parts of this country, but mining for gold is like other kinds of business.

    Chief of Scouts Drannan, William F 1910

  • The intersection of Desiderata and Jules Verne formed a kind of gulch, the balconied terraces of Freeside cliff dwellers rising gradually to the grassy tablelands of another casino complex.

    Wonder Woman and the Lasso of Truth Boudreau Freret 2010

  • The intersection of Desiderata and Jules Verne formed a kind of gulch, the balconied terraces of Freeside cliff dwellers rising gradually to the grassy tablelands of another casino complex.

    Neuromancer Gibson, William, 1948- 1984

Comments

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  • A thick, ill-shaped person.

    June 25, 2011