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gulch

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Etymology and origin of the English word gulch

Pronunciation

  • /ɡʌlt͡ʃ/[1]

gulch1 to swallow greedily

Confidence
Established
Formation
Onomatopoeia
First attested
c. 1225 Ancrene Riwle
From
Middle English gulchen

Etymology

The word for swallowing greedily is inherited from Middle English gulchen (“to drink greedily; to spew”), also glucchen and culchen.[2][3] It is imitative,[4][5][6] and Barnhart takes gulchen as formed from glucchen by metathesis of u and l.[3] The OED and the Shorter Oxford compare dialect German gulken, Norwegian gulka and dialect Swedish gölka;[4][5] Merriam-Webster also compares gylka (“to vomit”) and probably gylpa (“to gulp”), and refers to gulp.[7] The Middle English compound gulche-cuppe (“a greedy drinker”) is recorded from the mid-13th century.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To drink or swallow greedily: about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle, where the same text also has gulch out, to vomit.[4][2]

Semantic evolution

Barnhart records the Middle English verb also for gushing forth, about 1410.[3] A noun, a glutton or a drunkard, appears in Ben Jonson's Poetaster in 1602 and was used until 1611.[4] Both the verb and the noun later survived only in Scots and dialect.[5][7] Wright's dialect dictionary found the verb in general use in Scotland, England and America, from Yorkshire and Lancashire to Devon and Cornwall, for eating or drinking voraciously, with forms such as gulsh, gulge and gulk;[9] the OED also notes gulk in Derbyshire and Devonshire.[4] In 1848 Bartlett described to gulch, to swallow voraciously, as still heard in low language in New England.[10]

Timeline

  • c. 1225 – to swallow or drink greedily, also gulch out, to vomit.[4][2]
  • c. 1410 – to gush forth.[3]
  • 1602 – noun, a glutton or a drunkard (until 1611).[4]
  • 1848 – to swallow voraciously, in New England.[10]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (dialect) To swallow or drink greedily and noisily.[7][5][9][4]
  2. (obsolete) gulch out: to vomit.[4][2]

Noun

  1. (dialect) A glutton or a drunkard.[7][5][9]

gulch2 ravine

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1832 A. Earle, Tristan d'Acunha
Ultimate origin
English gulch

Etymology

The word for the ravine is of uncertain origin.[11][4] It is perhaps from English a use of the dialect verb gulch,[4][8][3][12][7] which, besides to swallow, also meant of land to sink in, and of water to gush or run with a full stream.[3][8][12][13] Hoad, Klein and the Oxford Dictionary of English point to the sense to swallow.[14][6][15] Weekley thought it might have been formed on the analogy of gorge, or be a corruption of that word.[16] Etymonline quotes the Century Dictionary as finding no etymological connection with gully.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A narrow, deep ravine with steep sides, marking the course of a torrent: 1832, in A. Earle's account of Tristan da Cunha.[4] Etymonline, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster also date it to 1832,[8][3][7] and Barnhart calls it American English.[3]

Semantic evolution

The word became chiefly North American,[5][11] and in the gold-mining West a gulch was especially a ravine with a deposit of gold.[4][10] The Dictionary of American Regional English has diary quotations from Colorado from 1859 on, finds it widespread but especially common in California, and records it as the last element of place names, from which it also formed derisive nicknames for places.[10] In Canada it is found earlier as gulsh, in Newfoundland in 1836, and in British Columbia it was the name for what elsewhere was a coulee.[17] Verbs formed from the noun meant to drag wood down a gulch (1877), to dig for gold in a gulch (1879) and, of an animal, to have fallen into one (1906).[4] The Century Dictionary also used it for a long, narrow, deep depression of the sea bottom.[4]

Timeline

  • 1832 – a narrow, deep ravine marking the course of a torrent.[4][8][3][7]
  • 1836 – gulsh, in Newfoundland.[17]
  • 1859 – in Colorado, the first American quotation.[10]
  • 1877 – verb, to drag wood down a gulch.[4]
  • 1879 – verb, to dig for gold in a gulch.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A deep, narrow ravine with steep sides, cut by a fast stream or torrent that often runs only after rain: The trail drops into a dry gulch below the ridge.[11][7][5][4]
  2. (US) A valley or notch through which one can cross mountains or hills.[10]

Verb

  1. To drag wood down a gulch; also, to dig for gold in a gulch.[4]

Word family

  • dry-gulch

Usage notes

In some American usage a gulch is wider and deeper than a gully, which is deeper than a draw.[10] English dialect also had a gulch meaning a heavy fall, recorded from 1671, and a verb to fall heavily, from 1821; the OED and the Shorter Oxford take it as probably imitative, and Merriam-Webster as perhaps from the swallowing verb.[4][5][7]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
  11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  12. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  14. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  15. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  17. ^ a b Dollinger, Stefan, ed., A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, 3rd ed. (online), Vancouver: University of British Columbia, dchp.arts.ubc.ca
Cite this entry

“Gulch.” Etymologically, 13 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/gulch. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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