Gully

How to spell gully

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce gully

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does gully mean?

1. nounA deep narrow channel or ravine cut into the ground by running water.

Gully in a sentence

• Heavy rain carved a deep gully across the hillside path.

• The hikers climbed down into a dry gully to shelter from the wind.

Where does gully come from?

Language of origin: French

Gully comes from the Old French word goulet, a diminutive of goule meaning 'throat' or 'gullet', which in turn descends from the Latin gula, the literal word for 'throat'. The idea travelled from the human throat to any narrow opening that liquid passes through, and by the seventeenth century English writers were using gully for a deep channel cut into the earth by running water. The throat connection survives in close relatives such as 'gullet' and even 'gargle', all sharing that same gula root. Because the spelling no longer looks anything like its French parent, the only real trap is remembering the doubled l and the -y ending rather than -ey. In cricket the same word was later borrowed to name the close fielding position between the slips and point, the player standing in a narrow gap much like water in a channel.

How the word is built

• gull- (from Old French goule: throat, channel)
• -y (noun suffix)