gully
/ˈɡʌli
/noun (plural gullies)
1 (also gulley) A ravine formed by the action of water.The tidal bore comes in faster than a galloping horse, but first wilful surging water fills gullies and gaping holes left by the last ebbing tide....
- The Saharan winds were blowing sand onto fertile hillsides, and when it rained the water was cutting gullies through the rich alluvial soil along the wadi.
- These low water gullies can be classic fish-holding areas.
Synonyms
ravine, canyon, gorge, pass, defile, couloir, deep narrow valley;
gulf, chasm, abyss
British dialect chine, bunny
Northern English clough, gill, thrutch;
Scottish cleuch, heugh;
North American gulch, coulee, flume;
South African sloot, kloof, donga
1.1Australian /NZ A river valley.He said the river gullies from Omanawa Rd to No 2 Rd were the most likely habitat for local kiwi....
- Often they end up in our rivers and gullies or in dangerous heaps in the countryside.
- Drenched to the bone, the hunter stands shivering at the base of a remote gully in the country around Victoria's Big River.
1.2A deep artificial channel serving as a gutter or drain.You can also see gullies and huge channels of water draining from the city and then running back into the sea....
- They then got trapped in the sand next to the Lancaster channel - one of four deep gullies that criss-cross the area.
- Now a review of the city's cleaning of gullies, gutters, footpaths and back lanes in terraced streets has prompted commercial services officers to study the issue.
Synonyms
channel, conduit, trench, ditch, drain, culvert, cut, flume, gutter, furrow, groove, depression
2 Cricket A fielding position on the off side between point and the slips: he was caught in the gully by Jones...
- Immediately after the interval Stewart, who had just kept wicket for the best part of 100 overs, edged to Steve Waugh in the gully and the head had been knocked off the innings.
- Fielding in the gully, he flung himself to his left and caught Hinds acrobatically to end the number three's 10-ball innings.
- The nightwatchman Richard Dawson didn't last long, driving Gillespie to Waugh in the gully in the second over of the morning.
2.1A fielder at gully.
3 (also gali) Indian An alley.Disembarking near Manikarnika Ghat, the group entered a narrow lane, one of the many galis, that led to the Viswanath temple....
- Large number of families are crammed in galis in most unhygienic conditions.
- This is where I turned into a small gali (side street) and kept going from gali to gali.
From Hindi galī
verb
(also gulley) [with object] (usually as adjective gullied) (Of water) make gullies or deep channels in (land): he began to pick his way over the gullied landscape...
- That human impact, along with the climatic forces of wind and water has gullied, eroded and damaged plant ecosystems over a large area of the hill.
- The skarn is exposed along a steep mountainside that is gullied along its base by several small, intermittent streams that flow into a beautiful, boulder-filled river.
- The Customs House and the blunt gullied bulk of the Grote Kirk, manifestations of commerce and Calvinism, dominated a town famous for its rigorous Dutch cleanliness.
Origin
Mid 16th century (in the sense 'gullet'): from French goulet (see gullet).