gulch

(gŭlch)

A small ravine, especially one cut by a torrent.

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

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

gulch

(ɡʌltʃ)

(Physical Geography) US and Canadian a narrow ravine cut by a fast stream

[C19: of obscure origin]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

gulch

(gʌltʃ)

n.

a deep, narrow ravine, esp. one marking the course of a stream or torrent.

[1825–35; compare British dial. gulch, gulsh to run with a full stream, gush, (of land) to sink in, Middle English gulchen to spew forth, gush; expressive word akin to gulp, gush, etc.]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

gulch - a narrow gorge with a stream running through it

flume

gorge - a deep ravine (usually with a river running through it)

Translations

burrone gola

gulch

[gʌlʃ] N (US) → barranco m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

gulch

[ˈgʌltʃ] n (US) → ravin m

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

gulch

n (US) → Schlucht f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

gulch

[gʌltʃ] n (Am) → burrone m

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

North Westwardly from Indian Hill, about nine miles as the crow flies, is Macarger's Gulch. It is not much of a gulch--a mere depression between two wooded ridges of inconsiderable height.

About midway between the head and the mouth of Macarger's Gulch, the hill on the right as you ascend is cloven by another gulch, a short dry one, and at the junction of the two is a level space of two or three acres, and there a few years ago stood an old board house containing one small room.

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Advancing cautiously he crawled toward the opposite end imbued with a full realization of what it would mean if Numa should suddenly enter the tunnel in front of him; but Numa did not appear and the ape-man emerged at length into the open and stood erect, finding himself in a rocky cleft whose precipitous walls rose almost sheer on every hand, the tunnel from the gorge passing through the cliff and forming a passageway from the outer world into a large pocket or gulch entirely enclosed by steep walls of rock.

The ape-man had advanced well into the gulch as he investigated his surroundings and now as he stood near the tree, satisfied that the tunnel would prove a dry and quiet retreat for the night, he turned to retrace his way to the outer end of the entrance that he might block it with boulders against Numa's return, but even with the thought there came something to his sensitive ears that froze him into statuesque immobility with eyes glued upon the tunnel's mouth.

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Should we take the brush with the redskins at Slightly Gulch? It was a sanguinary [cheerful] affair, and especially interesting as showing one of Peter's peculiarities, which was that in the middle of a fight he would suddenly change sides.

This almost makes one wish that the gulch or the cake or Tink's leaf had won.

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I had not gone a hundred yards before I reached the limit of my run--the head of the gulch which I had mistaken for a canon.

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Where the road dipped nearly at sea level to cross a small gulch Billy looked for water.

Midway along, where a barbed wire fence was strung high across the mouth of the gulch and weighted down with big rocks, she caught her first glimpse of the tiny beach.

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The foundation of their airy castles lay already before them in the strip of rich alluvium on the river bank, where the North Fork, sharply curving round the base of Devil's Spur, had for centuries swept the detritus of gulch and canyon.

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And then Milly loomed up with a thousand dishes on her bare arm-- loomed up big and white and pink and awful as Mount Saint Elias--with a smile like day breaking in a gulch. And the Kiondiker threw down his pelts and nuggets as dross, and let his jaw fall half-way, and stared at her.

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Bonanza Creek he found staked from mouth to source, while every little draw and pup and gulch that drained into it was like-wise staked.

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