Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bean n.1

1. as units of money.

(a) money, irrespective of the coin (cf. beans n.1 ).

[UK]W. Cartwright Ordinary V iv: I do not reche / One bean for all.
[US]Wkly Rake (NY) 30 July n.p.: wants to knowWhether Moll S. did that thing with the ‘countryman’ just for beans, as she said.
[UK]Sam Sly 2 June 4/3: Though very poor she wished to show, / That her dear daughter had a bean; / And ordered lots of flashy dress, / Which doubtless cost five pounds.
[US]Letters by an Odd Boy 160: Beans, blunt, brass, bustle, coppers, chinkers, chips, dibbs, mopusses, needful, ochre, pewter, quids, rays, rowdy, shiners, stuff, tin, and stumpy!
[US]E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden Explains 93: I never put up a bean; never showed de color of de long green onct.
[Aus]Truth (Sydney) 17 Mar. 7/7: Stamper was bound to be quiet because he was not supposed to have lost a bean.
[UK]Binstead & Wells Pink ’Un and Pelican 248: The millionaires go out among the hoboes that haven’t got a bean, and there ensues a brief era of couters and good feeling.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 19 May 11/3: Let never a ‘bean’ by you be missed, / You’re told, you know, you must insist!
[US]W. Irwin Confessions of a Con Man 45: I landed there without a bean.
[Aus]Sport (Adelaide) 19 July 9/3: They Say [...] That When Snorkey started [...] he never had a bean.
[UK]‘Sapper’ Mufti 159: Charming without a bean in the world isn’t a fact — it’s a farce.
[US]Van Vechten Nigger Heaven 37: You see, I haven’t a bean.
[UK]D. Footman Pig and Pepper (1990) 207: Damn it, old man, when I arrived here three months ago without a bean [...] you backed me up.
[Aus]H. Drake-Brockman ‘Price’ in Mann Coast to Coast 48: It’d been right enough at first, quite all right that every bean should go back into the land.
[UK]K. Amis letter 16 Jan. in Leader (2000) 195: The time to worry about money is when you haven’t a bean to bless yourself with.
[US]R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 15: The guy was down and out, starving, dirty, without a bean.
[UK]F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 75: My husband died and left me without a bean.
[UK]F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 154: They might just repossess the houses and kick you all out without a bean.
[UK]J. Baker Walking With Ghosts (2000) 167: Gambles everything he’s got. Comes away from the table without a bean.
[UK]Sun. Times News Rev. 12 Mar. 1: After a lifetime of stocks, shares, contacts and commissions, the rich man hasn’t a bean.

(b) a sovereign, a guinea.

[UK]Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: Bean. A guinea. Half bean; half a guinea.
[UK]‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.
[UK]H. Smith Gale Middleton 1 148: ‘What’s the swag?’ ‘Not much; only two beans and a bull’.
[UK]Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 4: Formerly bean meant a guinea.
[US] ‘Scene in a London Flash-Panny’ Matsell Vocabulum 99: It was no great quids, Jim—only six flimseys and three beans.
[UK]C. Reade Hard Cash II 246: What me fake the beans, now I live this side of the fence?
[UK]Sl. Dict.
[UK]D.C. Murray Rainbow Gold III 140: ‘Here’s some of the beans,’ he continued figuratively, as he drew five sovereigns from the same pocket.
[Aus] ‘Prince Albert’s Fashion’ at warrenfahey.com 🌐 An’ runs accounts for underwear / An’ banks their beans an’ rocks.
[UK]J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.
[Aus]Western Mail (Perth) 28 May 21/1: [from Daily Mail, London] A sovereign had a lot of slang names [...] a portrait, a yellow boy, [...] a foont, a poona [and] a bean.
[Aus]G. Seal Lingo 36: A bean is a guinea or money in general, retaining this meaning in the phrase without a bean.

(c) a $5 gold piece.

[US]Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890) 8: Bean. A five dollar gold piece].

(d) (also beano, green bean) a dollar.

[US]T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 16: Why the old turk wouldn’t have had a bean if I let half the creditors in.
[US]L. Chevalier ‘Getting into Society’ Variety Stage Eng. Plays 🌐 I cough up ten beans to hear Caruso strangle ‘The Bohemian Girl’!
[US]Ade Hand-made Fables 84: He allows that he will shoot every Bean in the old Tin Box and die Poor.
[US]C.B. Booth ‘Mr Clacksworthy Within the Law’ Detective Story 13 Aug. 🌐 Mrs. Bascom vamped old money-bags outta them fifty thousand beanos.
[US]M. Prenner ‘Sl. Terms for Money’ in AS IV:5 358: ‘Dollar,’ of course, is well represented. It is a bean, berry, bone, buck.
M. Fulcher ‘Believe Me’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 16 Feb. 12/3: [T]wo beans / Is the sum total of wealth in my jeans.
J. Lilienthal Horse Crazy 11: Without a coat on his back or a bean in his pocket [W&F].
[US](con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 257: I want four hundred beans. [Ibid.] 384: They wanna give away a billion and a half green beans.
[US]H. Ellison ‘High Dice’ in Gentleman Junkie 87: He was into me for about seventy beans.
[US](con. 1930s–50s) D. Wells Night People 117: Beans. Dollars.
[US]R. De Christoforo Grease 86: They must be worth two beans apiece, easy.
[US]Kool G Rao ‘Road to the Riches’ 🎵 There were four kinda fiends bringin jackets and jeans / Magazines, anything, just to hustle a bean.
L. Tsai ‘Shooting Pool’ in Anthologist Fall 🌐 The tall guy’s saying something to me about money. Fifty beans? I just smile and nod.
J. Hawkins in Golf Digest July 🌐 Tour policy requires each player to leave a minimum tip of $20 per tournament, which isn’t to be confused with the going rate for golf’s upper class: Fifty beans if you miss the cut, $100 if you play all four days.

(e) (US) a dollar bill – any denomination.

[US]E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden and Mr Paul 75: How about de fiver? [...] De long, crisp, clean, green bean I give you?

(f) a small or derisory amount of money.

[US]T.I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 56: They get beans for a check. Christ they must be nuts. [Ibid.] 114: The chick gets beans, peanuts.
[US]T.C. Bambara ‘Playing with Punjab’ in Gorilla, My Love (1972) 70: I got this boss place [...] for four beans you can move right in and everything’s yours.

(g) a poker chip.

[US]Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

2. (Aus.) the epitome of fashion.

[Aus]Bell’s Life in Sydney 10 Oct. 4/1: Must I allow my old Nugee [i.e. a coat made by that London tailor] / That made me once the bean—the thing / Exposed in a Jew’s shop to be / Or at his dirty door to swing.

3. the genitals.

(a) the penis.

[US] Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
[US]Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 192: Elision also occurs with bean, which is short for beanstalk or beanpole.

(b) (US) the hymen; thus cop a bean, to deflower, to have sexual intercourse.

[US]Goldin et al. DAUL 24/2: Bean. (Irish-American, especially in New York State) The hymen. ‘To cop a bean’ – To have sexual intercourse with a virgin.

(c) the clitoris; in combs.; see bean flicker ; flick the bean

implied at bean flicker

4. (also beanie, beano) the head.

[US]H. Green Maison De Shine 130: Pop swung on a guy an’ come near knockin’ his bean offa him.
[US]R. Lardner You Know Me Al (1984) 143: I forgot all about the ball game and I cut loose at his bean.
[US]Day Book (Chicago) 18 Nov. 14/2: That’s another one knocked out. I surely busted Willie on the beanie.
[US]N. Putnam West Broadway 98: You can begin, if you let your bean work, to get some notion of the breadth of our civilization.
[UK]Wodehouse Inimitable Jeeves 85: You’ve just finished exercising the old bean.
[US]D. Hammett ‘The Big Knockover’ Story Omnibus (1966) 300: He had to make a show of it when he should have ben using his bean.
[US]D. Runyon ‘Breach of Promise’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 28: This [...] causes her to slug Mr. Jabez Tuesday on the bean.
[US]H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 247: Plato had an idea or two in his bean, yes sir, yes siree.
D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 17 Oct. 10: Perfect rums who knock themselves out with a lot of rugcutting [...] while the beam is beaming and the town is dreaming.
[UK]Wodehouse Mating Season 28: As if a bomb had suddenly exploded inside the bean.
[UK]Wodehouse Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit 4: Her bean crammed to bursting point with the little grey cells.
[US]B. Appel Tough Guy [ebook] ‘How about usin’ the old bean? [...] The guy who’s tough ain’t in the same class as the guy who’s tough and smart’.
[US]T.I. Rubin In the Life 111: Oh screw it, Doc. A little thing pops into my bean and you make a big spread about it.
[US]T. Wolfe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 19: I have been through some crewcut college fraternity weekends that have been weirder-looking and -sounding, insane on the beano.
[US]L. Rosten Dear ‘Herm’ 15: I thought about our old class some more – and the name of ‘Shemly’ Botnick invaded the old bean! [Ibid.] 150: Flo is no dum-dum. She has eyes in back of her beano.
[US]J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 42: The unyielding brass bean of the chubby Chinese deity.
[US]S. Morgan Homeboy 241: The paranoid fantasies blooming in his bookie bean.
[US]J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 234: Spoony’s little shaved bean is bobbing up and down in fear.
[US]J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 19: A white man with a baldy bean.

5. (US black/drugs) a drug or tablet.

(a) a package of a drug.

[US]Chicago Trib. 11 Oct. 14/3: A package of drug wrapped in paper is called a ‘deck,’ a ‘check,’ or a ‘bundle.’ If it is in a capsule it is called a ‘berry,’ a ‘bean,’ or a ‘cap’ [DA].

(b) usu. in pl.; any form of tablet, esp. Benzedrine; thus beaned up, under the influence of Benzedrine [resemblance].

[US]Maurer & Vogel Narcotics and Narcotic Addiction (3rd edn).
[US](con. 1960s) D. Goines Whoreson 213: I ran down the pill man and bought his supply of beans.
[US]H. Feldman et al. Angel Dust 164: ‘Beans’ or ‘downers’.
[US]E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 169: Benzedrine – variously called [...] bean, chalk, or wake-up.
[Can]Totally True Diaries of an Eighties Roller Queen 🌐 22 Sept. Today I went to Tracey’s house. Her brother Bill was there and he had a whole bag of beans [a type of caffeine pill]. I had five an drank them down with two glasses of barrel wash.
[US]E. Little Another Day in Paradise 82: Make the call. Get fifty thousand beans.
[US]ONDCP Street Terms 2: Bean — A capsule containing drugs.
[US]W. Keyser ‘Carny Lingo’ in http://goodmagic.com 🌐 Beans, or Beanies — Amphetamines (‘stay awake for days’ pills).

6. (US) a Mexican, any Spanish-American; occas. as adj. [stereotyping of the Mexican diet].

[US]Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
[US]F. Salas Tattoo the Wicked Cross (1981) 52: Are you the little guy who got cornered by the beans from Santa Clara about a year ago and fought so hard losing they gave you a free pass?
[US]G. Swarthout Skeletons 11: You bean bastard.
[US]E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 55: Most of the pejoratives characterized Chicanos in terms of the foods associated with them [...] bean, beaner, bean choker.
[US]C. Hiaasen Lucky You 228: It was a human bean [...] A nigger is what it looked like.

7. (US black, also big bean) the sun [note comment at beam n.2 ].

[US]D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 21: With the bean beaming on thy crown.
[US]Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 219: I ain’t greased since the big bean collared a nod in the early black.
[US]Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

8. (US) a minuscule or insignificant amount, nothing; cit. 1954 is used in negative, i.e. something.

‘Josphine Tey’ Brat Farrar 37: ‘They owe you something, don’t they?’ ‘No they don’t. Not a bean’.
[US]‘Curt Cannon’ ‘Die Hard’ I Like ’Em Tough (1958) 20: One junkie more or less doesn’t mean beans to a pusher.
[US]E. Hunter ‘. . . Or Leave It Alone’ in Jungle Kids (1967) 62: There was one cat in the world who meant beans to Joey Angeli – and that was Joey Angeli.
[UK]L. Davidson Rose of Tibet 189: It did not seem to matter a bean, now that the cat was out of the bag, whether Houston saw the other Europeans or not.

In compounds

beanbag (n.)

(US) the scrotum.

[US]T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] Simultaneously, a tiny heel collided with my hairy beanbag.
bean man (n.) [sense 4b above]

(drugs) a seller of any type of drugs in pill form.

[US](con. 1960s) D. Goines Whoreson 225: I saw the bean man walking down the street.
bean ranch (n.)

(US und.) San Quentin prison, California.

[UK]‘The Jargon of Thieves’ in Derry Jrnl 8 Sept. 6/5: If [...] a safe robber had been sent to San Quentin [the thief] would say ‘A gopher-cracker has gone over to the bean ranch’ .

In phrases

flick the bean (v.) [sense 2c above]

of a woman, to masturbate.

[UK]K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 129: The scenes with her flicking her bean are fucking good, by the way.
flip one’s bean (v.) (also flip one’s beanie) [SE flip/ flip v.4 (2)]

(US) to go crazy, to lose emotional control.

‘Weldon Hill‘ Casualties 164: Have you flipped your beanie, Clay? Six watermelons!
J. Neugeboren Big Man 92: Next thing I know he’s flipped his bean, dancing around me [...] throwing jabs .
for beans (adv.) [sense 1 above]

(orig. US) in no way whatsoever.

‘Dating Advice’ Column at DatingFun.com 🌐 I can’t tell if someone likes me or not for beans.
half-a-bean (n.) (also half-bean)

a half-sovereign, a half-dollar.

[Aus]Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
[UK]Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
[UK]Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
[UK]Hotten Sl. Dict.
[Aus]Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 34: Half a Bean, half a sovereign.
[Aus]Argus (Melbourne) 20 Sept. 6/4: The half sovereign masquerades as half a bean or half a couter.
[UK]Exeter & Plymouth Gaz. 4 Feb. 5/6: Ten shillings is known in some circles as a ‘half-bean’ and a ‘smelt’.
[US]N.-Y. American 26 Apr. in Fleming Unforgettable Season (1981) 54: Four bits (a slang expression signifying half a bean).
[Aus]Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 7 June 9/6: Slang of Money [...] 10/- is a ‘half bean,’ a ‘smelt’.
[US]P. Di Donato Christ in Concrete 206: ‘All right, cockos,’ commanded Fausta, ‘throw up half a bean each.’.
loose in the bean (adj.) (also loose in the attic, …canoodle, …head, …tiles) [SE loose + attic n. (1)SE head/ ? noodle n.1 (1)/SE tiles]

(US) eccentric, crazy.

[US]Spokane Press (WA) 17 Aug. 4/3: He’s so loose in his attic that he rattles.
[UK]C. Mackenzie Sinister Street I 164: We are a couple of barmy chaps, hush not a word! / A little bit loose in our tiles, perhaps, hush, not a word! / We’re lunatics, lunatics, everybody declares / We’re a couple of fellows gone wrong in our bellows, / As mad as a pair of March hares.
New Scimitar (Memphis, TN) 31 July 10/2: Golfing [...] Those who followed it for a pastime were comical in the conc — which is English for loose in the attic.
[US]M. Meredith ‘The Human Head in Sl.’ in AS III:5 409: Other expressions which one sometimes hears or sees in popular speech [...] ‘loose in the bean’.
[US]T. Wolfe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 194: Acid rappers, freaks who made a competition out of who could take the most acid — they all seemed to end up loose in the head.
[US]E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 35: But suggesting something like that with a straight face, he had to be loose in the canoodle.
[US]W. Diehl Sharky’s Machine 272: I’m not saying he’s a goddamn loony bird. He’s just, uh . . . a little loose in the attic.
T. Szasz Lexicon of Lunacy 57: Loony-tick Loony-tunes Loopy Loose in the bean Loose in the hilts [etc.].
lose one’s bean (v.) (also lose one’s bap)

1. to lose one’s temper.

[US](con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 63: He finally lost his bean, and dribbled head on into her.
[Ire]J. Morrow Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 96: He’d lost his bap completely [...] he stood shaking a trembling fist under my nostril.

2. (US) to become obsessed with.

H. de Leeuw Underworld Story 120: Dasher Abbandado, a Murder, Inc. hood, lost his bean to a tall, lissome, auburn-haired, devastating cutie, named Connie Malone.
not a bean (n.)

nothing at all, esp. of money.

[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Dec. Red Page/3: If a man is assaulted by highwaymen and robbed he is ‘stuck up,’ and if he has no money whatever it is common to say he ‘has not a bean.’.
[UK]A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 217: The exquisite Smith [...] replied, somewhat dejectedly, ‘Not a bean.’.
W.N. Famous Colonel Crook Stories 94: So the bill began to climb like a hod-carrier, and I’m there with not a bean.
[UK]‘Sax Rohmer’ Golden Scorpion 231: An’ not a ‘oat’ in me pocket— not a ‘bean’! Broke to the wide.
I. Rathbone We that Were Young 130: And now I’ve gone and hitched myself to someone who hasn’t got a bean—not a bean in the world—apart from his pay!
[Aus]K. Tennant Joyful Condemned 7: ‘Got any money?’ ‘Not a bean.’.
[Aus] ‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxiii 4/4: cracker: [...] Also ‘to not have a cracker’. No money. Also not a bean.
[UK]N. Smith Gumshoe (1998) 175: ‘So you’ve no money on you, then?’ ‘Not a bean,’ I said.
[UK]K. Sampson Powder 42: I intend to repay nothing for a year. Not a bean.
Salvesen & Cousineau Artists’ Estates: Reputations in Trust 180: We were left with the studio building, my parents’ house in the Catskills, the paintings, and not a bean to do anything with!
off one’s bean (adj.)

insane, eccentric.

[US]Lit. Digest 33 738/2: Dan O'Leary said Izzy would go off his bean.
R. Beach Heart of the Sunset 268: He’s queer — he’s off his bean.
F. Greene ZR Wins 160: But he’s just a little bit off his bean, the poor thing.
[US]J.T. Farrell Gas-House McGinty 349: I’ll bet as sure as Christ made green apples that he’ll go off his bean.
K. Wilford ‘Maggie’ at Vanagon.com 🌐 ‘This guy is really off his bean,’ I thought. ‘He really thinks this box on wheels is a person.’.
use one’s bean (v.)

to think, to act intelligently, to work things out.

[US]C.T. Clark diary 24 June in Soldier Letters (1919) 26: The wounded, waiting to be taken away, were in a horrible state of fright, and couldn’t use their beans at all.
[US]J.E. Lighter Word Improvisation in Atlantic Monthly Mar. 🌐 Interest in the contents of politicians’ noggins (long ago the word referred to a kind of drinking mug) is hardly new; the electorate has always liked candidates who use the old bean without being too obvious about it.

Uses based on SE/sense 5 above, pertaining to Mexicans or Hispanics

In derivatives

beanmobile (n.) [SE/sense 5 above + -mobile sfx]

(US) a ‘lowrider’ automobile, as customized and driven by Mexican/Puerto Rican teenagers and gang members.

[US]J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 16: I ditched the bean-mobile at the Ford lot.
[US]S. Morgan Homeboy 58: Joe thought [...] he’d been electrocuted by his highvoltage beanmobile.

In compounds

beanbag (n.)

(US) a Mexican.

P. Barnes Pawns 63: He is called ‘shithead,’ ‘turd,’ ‘maggot,’ [...] or ‘beanbag’ (an epithet for chicano) depending on the DI’s vocabulary and the recruit’s physical or racial characteristics.
bean bandit (n.)

(US) a Mexican.

[US]J. Brosnan Long Season (1975) 230: ‘Come on, Orlando, you bean bandit,’ I yelled at the TV screen. [Ibid.] 269: Bean Bandit A Latin American ballplayer.
[US]Current Sl. IV:3-4 (1970).
[US]E. Bunker Little Boy Blue (1995) 145: Where you’re going there’s lots of toughies – Okies, niggers and bean bandits.
bean choker (n.)

(US) a Spanish-American.

[US]E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 55: Most of the pejoratives characterized Chicanos in terms of the foods associated with them [...] bean choker.
bean dip (n.)

(US) a derog. term for a Mexican.

[US]S. Morgan Homeboy 252: Then whichever bean dip it was told that calamity [...] to doubletime it back to the pen.
bean-eater (n.)

(US, also bean and chili eater) a derog. term for a Mexican; occas. other Latin Americans (see cite 1922).

[US]DN V 63: Bean-eater, a name given to the low class Mexican.
F.P. Armitage Diet & Race 22: The Badawin who live on flesh, milk, and dates, deride the ‘bean eater’: Chilian miners.
[US]M. Sandoz ‘Sandhill Sundays’ in Botkin Folk-Say 293: There’d be a shapping match if he had to cuss out every cow-hand or bean-eater there.
[US]R.F. Adams Cowboy Lingo 198: To the cowboy a Mexican was a ‘greaser,’ ‘oiler,’ [...] ‘chili-eater,’ or ‘bean-eater’.
[US]R.F. Adams Western Words (1968) 14/2: bean eater A cowboy’s name for a Mexican.
[US]Indep. Record (Helena, MT) 9 Oct. 3/7: Other westerners might be [...] bean and chili eaters (Mexicans).
[US]Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
[US]Maledicta II:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 151: Bean-eater, Beaner, Beano Any Chicano, Mexican, Latin American, or other brown-skinned person for whom beans are a dietary staple. Still a fighting insult, but less so since the movie ‘Freebie & The Bean,’ with a Chicano narcotics agent as co-hero.
[US]H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 228: bean, bean eater, beaner, and beano, all for a Latin American, usually a chicano.
[US]W. Blevins Dict. of the Amer. West 16/1: bean-eater A jocular but derogatory term for a Mexican.
[US](con. 1963) L. Berney November Road 240: ‘That goggle-eyed bean-eater’.
bean queen (n.) [queen n. (2a)/-queen sfx (2)] (US gay)

1. a non-Hispanic person who prefers Hispanic partners for sex.

[US]B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 29: bean queen [...] 2. anglo who sticks to Mexican boys.
[US]H. Max Gay (S)language.

2. a Hispanic drag queen n. (1)

[US]B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 29: bean queen [...] Mexican homosexual.
[US]R. Scott Rebecca’s Dict. of Queer Sl. 🌐 bean queen – an Hispanic drag queen. Used by some gay men, generally derogatorily.
beantown (n.)

1. (US) that part of a town in which the poor or the immigrants live; such immigrants are stereotypically, but not invariably, Hispanics.

[UK]J. Green Words Apart 154: Beantown returns to a Mexican inference in a parallel meaning: the poorest, immigrant section of a town or city.

2. see also Bean Town

SE in slang uses

[see also compounds and phrases under beans n.3 ]

In compounds

beanbelly (n.)

see separate entries.

beanbrain (n.) [the implication is of minimal size]

(US) a fool; thus beanbrained adj., foolish.

[US]S. Bellow Augie March (1996) 48: You’ll see how beanbrained she is.
[Aus] ‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxii 6/1: bean brain: Stupid oaf.
R. Woodley Bears 90: Come on, bean-brain [HDAS].
[Aus]R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 21: Bean Brain Fool.
Traywick Gallery (Berkeley CA) catalogue at www.paulsonpress.com 🌐 And in Black Rabbit, the black shape of a crouching bunny rests above off-color insults printed pretty in pink: Slimeball, Lumpkhead [sic], Stinker, Beanbrain.
CyberSoccerNews 🌐 You cannot go to Asia, broadcast the world’s greatest and most important sporting event to an audience of untold millions, and sound like a subliterate beanbrain.
bean-count (v.) [? erect nipples]

(US campus) to stare at breasts.

Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 bean count v 1. to stare at breasts, usually in cold weather. (‘We just sat on the porch bean counting.’).
bean counter (n.)

(orig. US) anyone who deals with financial matters, esp. an accountant or statistician; thus bean-counting n. and adj.

[US]Interfaces Feb. 74: [title] The measure of M.S./O.R. applications; or, Let’s hear it for the bean counters [OED].
[UK]Indep. 29 Nov. 17/1: The highly respected beancounters at Price Waterhouse have failed to recognise that times are changing in the City.
[US]R. Marcinko Rogue Warrior (1993) 380: A no-load, bean-counting pain-in-the-ass.
[Aus]Bug (Aus.) 28 July 🌐 Cut across to those genius bean-counters at Norths who have got a $20 million piece of Central Coast real estate.
[Aus]Sydney Morning Herald 11 July 40: Who they [i.e UK cricketers] are individually, and what their talents might be collectively, seem to be factors of complete irrelevance to the boofheads and bean counters who run the game.
[US]http://grey-magazine.com July 🌐 Sometimes I just feel like a bureaucrat—a yellowing, servile bean-counter.
[Aus]Betoota-isms 62: Bean Counter [...] 1. A tax accountant 2. A white collar professional who records, tallies and analyses financial numbers 3. A corporate drone devoid of personality, often in training for a triathlon or long-distance fun run.
[US]A. Kirzman Giuliani 182: ‘I wasn’t a politician,’ Kerik said. ‘I wasn’t one of these fucking bean counters’.
[UK]M. Herron Secret Hours 299: ‘You know who the Park usually sends on these bean-counting missions?’.
bean-eater (n.) [the supposed preference of Bostonians for beans (cf. Bean Town )]

1. (US) an inhabitant of Boston, Massachusetts; thus bean-eating adj., Bostonian in manner.

[US]C. Mathews Career of Puffer Hopkins 19: A select circle of acquaintance, among wharfingers, small boatmen and bean-eaters, near the market.
[US]G.E. Clark Seven Years of a Sailor’s Life 252: Take that, you bean-eater.
Eve. Teleg. (Philadelphia, PA) 26 Mar. 5/1: The Bostonian did not object to being called a bean-eater.
[US]L.A. Dly Herald 21 Aug. 1/5: The fight to a finish between [...] Daniel Kelliher of Boston, and Joe Ellingsworth of New York [...] Ellingsworth received another in the stomach and the bean-eater barely parried a blow at his face. The New Yorker got a slashing blow on the side of the head, and the bean-eater paid for it with a light blow on the lip.
[US]letter in Marble Hill Press (MO) 16 Jan. 1/2: [signed] An Old-Time Bean-Eater.
Golden Caribbean 86: Then there are the clerks, book-keepers, and managers of the commissary [...] young fellows from the Southern part of the United States mostly, now and then a bean-eater from Boston.
[UK]J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 22/2: Bean-eater (New York). A term of scorn for a citizen of Boston, referring to the former Sunday custom observed by some Bostonians of accepting for dinner on that day cold belly of pork and colder beans.
Century Illus. Mthly Mag. 80 109/2: Why, you fool Yankee bean-eater, there ain’t neither of us knows a bloomin’ bit about the engines of this ship.
[US]Munsey’s Mag. 73 292/2: Luke had a Boston stock-plunger coming to his clairvoyant shop in search of advance information about a certain stock. The spirits were urging the bean-eater to buy this stock and hold it for a rise.
[US]Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl.
Amer. Motorist 21-2 17: ‘A motorist,’ says the daily Boston Globe in blowing off steam, ‘is a citizen who thinks he’s obeying the law when he slows down as he passes the stop sign.’ Evidently the erudite bean eater hasn't known many AAA drivers.
[US]Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
[US]Maledicta VII 24: Groups as disparate as Mexicans and Yankees, especially Bostonians, have been called bean eater.
[US]H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 228: Bean eater, which also is a resident of Boston, a.k.a. Beantown.

2. see also bean-eater

beanfeast (n.) (also bean feed) [SE beanfeast, an annual dinner given by employers to their workers; in its original form beans were a featured dish]

any form of festivity or celebration; thus bean-feaster n.; as v., to make merry.

[UK]Proceedings at Assizes (Surrey) 17/2: The very Day this Misfortune happened, there was a Bean-Feast at the Deceased’s House.
[[UK]Times 18 July 1/1: The annual bean feast at the long-established House in St. George’s-Fields, which for so many years has been celebrated under that Title, will be held on the 22d of this present July, where the Company of all the Friends will be esteemed as a favour to the House, and compliment to the Stewards].
[UK]Comic Almanack Mar. 82: The petition of the Ducks to be presented to Mr. Poulter, for the discontinuance of Bean Feasts.
[UK] ‘’Arry on the Road’ Punch 9 Aug. 83/1: ’Twas a bit of a beanfeast, you see, and our lot tooled it down in a drag.
[UK]J.K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat 217: Another good way we discovered of irritating the aristocratic type of steam launch, was to mistake them for a beanfeast, and ask them if they were Messrs. Cubit’s lot [...] and could they lend us a saucepan.
[UK]W. Pett Ridge Minor Dialogues 29: Oh, I say, what a day for a beanfeast!
[UK]W.S. Maugham Liza of Lambeth (1966) 77: Yer don’t think I’d ’ave come aht beanfeastin’ with yer if I ’adn’t liked yer?
[UK]R. Whiteing No. 5 John Street 250: To-night is the bean-feast of the ‘hands,’ of the myriads in collar.
[UK]Marvel XV:386 Mar. 1: Wot are we ’ere for – a bloomin’ beanfeast or a free-and-easy?
[US]J. London People of the Abyss 151: And ‘bean-feasters’ from London, dashing past in coaches, cheered and jeered and shouted insulting things after us.
[NZ]Otago Witness 4 Mar. 2/3: Shure, he could win it without his taale! [...] It’s a bean feastr fur us, sorr.
[Ire]Joyce Ulysses 174: All those women and children excursion beanfeast burned and drowned in New York.
[UK]W. Holtby Anderby Wold (1981) 86: I think it’s perfectly beastly, making a kind of beanfeast because somebody is going to be shut up in the earth.
[UK]D.L. Sayers Nine Tailors (1984) 57: They had some sort of dispute with the Minister about their Good Friday beanfeast.
[US]H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 110: The San Francisco Examiner reported a Hell’s Angels plot to terrorize the annual Lion’s Club bean feed.
[UK]N. Cohn Awopbop. (1970) 161: The royalties went on beanfeasts.
[UK]Indep. Rev. 10 July 20: I turned up at this snooty beanfeast wearing a collarless shirt.
bean-head (n.) [-head sfx (1)/SE head]

1. (US) a fool; as adj., stupid.

[US]Eve. World (NY) 5 Mar. 14/1: I don’t want to know you [...] to my way of thinking you’re a bean-head.
[US]T. Thursday ‘Raw, Medium, & Well Done’ in Blue Ribbon Western June 🌐 These Western bean-heads are sick of looking at Fat Girls, Bearded Ladies, and Snake Charmers.
[US]Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
[US]L.K. Truscott IV Dress Gray (1979) 175: You might not have the least idea what to expect ... what this bastard was going to uncork on your skinny shaking little beanhead ass.
[US]H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 47: beanhead. Beans are small, of course.
[US]L. Rodríguez Always Running (1996) 32: They also had nicknames [...] Rano called her ‘beanhead’.

2. someone with a crew-cut hairstyle.

[UK]I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 75: Someone with a crew-cut is a ‘Bean head’, ‘Bullet head’, or ‘Convict number 99’.
bean house (n.)

(US) a cheap restaurant; as in phr. bean house bull, extravagant stories, ‘tall tales’.

[US]Lieberman & Rhodes CB (2nd edn) 289: Bean house bull — Tall tales.
[US]Entertainment Weekly 22 Jun. n.p.: The most famous coffee shop in America is undoubtedly Monk’s Café, the site of many a manic ‘Seinfeld’ conversation. The second-best-known is the yupscale bean house on ‘Friends,’ where the brooding barista Gunther [...] presides behind the counter, dispensing hefty cups while nursing a crush on Jennifer Aniston’s Rachel.
Denzel Electric Books 🌐 BURBULT’S BAR AND BEAN HOUSE. 14,250 words. A science fiction novelette.
bean juice (n.) [the stereotypical result of eating beans]

(US gay) oily sweat exuded from the anus or liquid found around the anus of one who constantly breaks wind.

[US]B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
bean money (n.) [just enough to buy a meal of beans]

(US) subsistence; money earned for odd jobs.

Kerouac Dharma Bums 191: You're just drinking too much all the time [...] coming down the hill spending your bean money on wine.
[US]J. Thompson Texas by the Tail (1994) 158: Why do you let this half-baked whore clip you for practically everything but your bean money?
C. Bukowski Erectionsd, Ejaculations, etc. 99: Whether the dear little things need rent and bean money, I don’t know. probably a combo.
G. Spence Of Murder & Madness 41: They were good boys, doing what their mother said, getting the bean money by gathering up the Coca-Cola bottles and old beer bottles along the road, which they traded at the store.
J. Bonner Buffalo Grass 116: You want to go on stealin’ a few cows now and then, or some horses, makin’ bean-money, or do you want to be rich?
J.A. Moreland Place to Lay my Head 357: ‘So, whatcha gonna do with your bean money?’ [...] ‘I already put it in the bank for college’.
beanpole (n.)

see separate entry.

bean-shooter (n.)

see separate entries.

bean shop (n.)

(US) a café, a restaurant.

[US]Wkly Varieties (Boston, MA) 3 Sept. 6/3: The crowd of loafers that nightly congregate in front of Gilson’s ‘bean shop’.
beanstalk (n.)

see separate entry.

bean-tosser (n.)

see separate entry.

Bean Town (n.) (also Beanville) [the supposed local staple]

1. (US) Boston, Massachusetts; also attrib.

[US]N.Y. Times 11 Oct. 3: They allude to him as ‘the Beantown manager,’ by way of conveying their knowledge that he comes from the proud city of Boston.
[US]Salt Lake Herald (UT) 13 Sept. 10/2: You should see the trio of maidens, hailing from Beantown.
[US]J. Flynt World of Graft 9: Other cities have similar nicknames. [...] Boston, ‘Bean-Town’.
[US]T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 17: Mr. James Britt will start his chirpfest at Boston next week [...] The talented gent from ‘out the portals of gilt’ fears that the culture of the Bean Town might get to him.
[US]Maui News (HI) 16 Dec. 7/1: He was sold to the Boston Red Sox, a misguided scout from Beantown having seen Barney in action.
[US]S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 280: Believe me, it’s us new business men that are running Bean Town today.
[US]S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 209: It goes right into Beantown, and New York and Washington.
[US]D. Runyon 9 Sept. [synd. col.] Conway [...] is also a lawyer in Beanville [and] as Irish as Paddy’s pig and is getting fat lately as all properous Bostonians do.
[US]D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 5 Mar. 17: Taft [...] Jordan still hits that high note [...] up in Beantown.
[US]J. Archibald ‘Short Order Crook’ in Ten Detective Aces Apr. 🌐 Me and Snooty Piper walk very briskly into the old Colonial wigwam—out in Newton, a suburb of Beantown.
[US]‘Digg Mee’ ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 20 Sept. 20/7: I cant put you down if you want to be the windy clown from Bean-Town.
[US]N.Y. Herald Trib. 8 Sept. 17/1: Boston has vanished from the language. It’s Beantown now.
[US]Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 790: bean town – Boston, Massachusetts.
[US](con. 1960s) R. Price Wanderers 235: Greetings from Beantown.
[US]R. Shell Iced 102: They came from everywhere . . . Bean-town-Boston played hostess to all of them.
TravelApe.com 🌐 Ready for a trip to Boston? Travel Ape provides a tour of ‘Bean-Town’ you can take in your pajamas!
[US]J. Stahl I, Fatty 121: Having tooled all the way from Los Angeles to Beantown, I was so tired [etc.].
[Ire]P Howard Braywatch 333: I shout, ‘New York City!’ so the entire plane can hear me. ‘Beantown!’.

2. see also beantown

bean wagon (n.)

(US) a cheap restaurant, esp. one that has been converted from a disused railway car.

K. Shepard Weep for Me 205: They stopped along the road at lunch time and ate hamburgers and coffee in a bean wagon.
[US]Look 18 Sept. 34: Mary Lou meets her husband in front of the club for breakfast in a beanwagon next to people just going to work.
Life Mag. 3 Jan. 67/1: At the daily shriek of factory whistle, clang of school bell or simple growl of an empty tummy, workaday America rushes eagerly to cafeteria, lunch box, bean wagon or executive dining room for its meridian meal.
E.H. Blaik You Have to Pay the Price 173: I’ve seen some fine football teams that lived out of a suitcase and ate at the corner bean wagon.
[US]L. Dills CB Slanguage 7: Bean wagon: coffee wagon.

In phrases

as a bean (adv.)

(Aus.) very well.

[Aus]R.G. Barrett Between the Devlin 56: ‘[I]f ever you want a night off or need a hand, give us a yell.’ ‘Righto, mate. As a bean’.
[Aus]R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] ‘Everything’s as a bean, Gary. The driver picked me up okay. The hotel’s the grouse’.
not worth a bean (adj.) [SE/sense 1 above]

worthless, useless.

[UK]Skelton Bowge of Courte line 95: ‘Pece,’ quod Desyre, ‘ye speke not worth a bene!’.
[UK]J. Heywood Epigrams upon Proverbs (3rd hundred) cxxviii: Measure is a mery meane, / But inche, foote, yarde, or ell: / Those measures are not worth a beane / They measure no drynke well.
[Ire]Stanyhurst Of Virgil his Æneis dedication to Dvnsayne: Artaxerxes [...] beeing so much gallopt, bee placed in thee dedicatory epistle receauing a cuppe of water of a swayne, or elles al is not wurth a beane.
[UK]Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.