the.com/string bean
A vegetable that grew a spine and an entire personality from being tall and skinny.
means A long, slender green bean eaten whole in its pod — and, by extension, a tall, thin person.
from A plain American compound from the 19th century: 'string' for the tough fibrous thread that ran along the pod's seam (which you'd snap and pull off before cooking — hence also 'snap bean'), plus 'bean.' The vegetable sense came first; the affectionate jab at lanky people followed naturally, the way a beanpole or a stretched-out shape invites comparison. Modern breeding has mostly bred the actual string out of the bean, but the name stuck — as names do.
- botanically wrong
- It is a fruit, not a vegetable
- the name
- Old varieties had a fibrous string to remove
- stringless now
- Bred string-free in 1894 by Calvin Keeney
- human slang
- Means a lanky, beanpole-shaped person
- eaten whole
- One of few legumes eaten pod and all
kentucky wonder — heirloom pole bean variety developed in kentucky, popular since 1890s for home gardens
scarlet runner bean — ornamental edible bean with bright red flowers, grown across temperate regions
asparagus bean — long thin asian variety (12-24 inches) cultivated in southeast asia, also called yard-long bean