gulch

• gulk, glutch (dialectal)

From earlier gulsh (“sink in, gush out”), from Middle English gulchen (“to gulp, spew”), probably from the source of gulp.[1] Likely not related to gully (“ravine formed by water”) despite the similarities.

• IPA^(key): /ɡʌlt͡ʃ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌltʃ

gulch (third-person singular simple present gulches, present participle gulching, simple past and past participle gulched)

1. (obsolete) To swallow greedily; to gulp down.
2. (obsolete) To fall heavily.

• (gulp): gulch-cup

gulch (plural gulches)

1. A ravine-like or deep V-shaped valley, often eroded by flash floods; shallower than a canyon and deeper than a gully.
2. (obsolete) An act of gulching or gulping.
3. (obsolete) A glutton.
   • 1601, Jonson, Ben, The Poetaster, act 3, scene 1:

     You did not! where was your sight, Œdipus? you walk with hare's eyes, do you? I'll have them glazed, rogue; an you say the word, they shall be glazed for you: come we must have you turn fiddler again, slave, get a base viol at your back, and march in a tawney coat, with one sleeve, to Goose-fair; then you'll know us, you'll see us then, you will, gulch, you will.

   • 1607, Tomkis, Thomas, Lingua, or the Combat of the Tongue and the Five Senses for Superiority‎, act 5, scene 16, published 1657:

     You muddy gulche, darst look me in the face while mine eyes sparkle with revengeful fire?

• (ravine): drygulch
• (glutton): gulchin

• Whitney, William Dwight, ed., The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, New York: The Century Co., 1902.