1. A name given to several kinds of pulse, or leguminous seeds, and the plants producing them. They belong to several genera, particularly Vicia, Phaseolus and Dolichos. The varieties most usually cultivated are, the horse bean the mazagan, the kidney bean the cranberry bean the lima bean the frost bean etc. The stalk is erect or climbing, and the fruit generally roundish, oval or flat, and of various colors.
2. Malacca-beans. Anacardia, the fruit of a tree growing in Malabar, and other parts of the Indies. This fruit is of a shining black color, of the shape of a heart flattened, about an inch long, terminating at one end in an obtuse point, and at the other, adhering to a wrinkles stalk. In contains, within two shells, a kernel of a sweetish taste; and betwixt the shells is lodged a thick acrid juice.
BEAN, the seed of certain leguminous plants cultivated for food all over the world, and furnished chiefly by the genera Faba, Phaseolus, Dolichos, Cajanus, and Soja. The common bean, in all its varieties, as cultivated in Britain and on the continents of Europe and America, is the produce of the Faba vulgaris. The French bean, kidney bean, or haricot, is the seed of the Phaseolus vulgaris; but in India several other species of this genus of plants are raised, and form no small portion of the diet of the inhabitants. From the genus Dolichos, again, the natives of India and South America procure beans or pulse, of no small importance as articles of diet, such as the D. ensiformis, or sword bean of India, the Lima beans, &c. Besides these there are numerous other pulses cultivated for the food both of man and domestic animals, to which the name beans is frequently given. The common bean is even more nutritious than wheat; and it contains a very high proportion of nitrogenous matter under the form of legumin, which amounts on an average to 24 per cent. It is, however, a rather coarse food, and difficult of digestion, and is chiefly used to feed horses, for which it is admirably adapted. In England French beans are chiefly, almost exclusively, used in the green state; the whole pod being eaten as a table vegetable, or prepared as a pickle. It is wholesome and nutritious; and in Holland and Germany the pods are preserved in salt by almosFevery family for winter and spring use. The green pods are cut across obliquely, most generally by a machine invented for the purpose, and salted in barrels. When wanted for use they are steeped in fresh water to remove the salt, and broiled or stewed; they form an agreeable addition to the diet at a time when no other vegetable may be had. ...Under the name of carob beans or locusts, the legume of Ceratonia siliqua is cultivated on the shores of the Mediterranean and used as food for cattle. The shells of the carob bean contain a large proportion of sugar, and are often consumed as a dainty by children. These beans were formerly supposed to be the locusts eaten by John the Baptist, and hence have been called St John’s bread. The Tonka, or Tonquin bean, is the produce of Dipterix odorata, a leguminous seed with a fine odour, used in perfumery and largely for scentingsnuff. The Calabarordeal bean is a highly poisonous leguminous seed. There are also several non-leguminous seeds to which the popular name bean is attached. Among these may be mentioned the sacred Egyptian or Pythagorean bean (Nelumbium speciosum), and the Ignatius bean (probably Strychnos multiflora), a source of strychnine. For the cultivation, &c., of the common bean, see Agriculture, vol. i. p. 360. The ancient Greeks and Romans made use of beans in gathering the votes of the people, and for the election of magistrates. A white bean signifiedabsolution, and a black one condemnation. Beans had a mysterious use in the lemuralia and parentalia, where the master of the family, after washing his hands three times, threw black beans over his head nine times, continuing to repeat the words, “I redeem myself and my family by these beans.”
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 3, p. 460 [553 words — estimated reading time: 4 minutes]
פול, occurs 2 Sam. xvii, 28, and Ezek. iv, 9. A common legume. Those most usually cultivated in Syria are the white horse-bean, _faba rotundaoblonga_, and the kidney-bean, _phaseolis minimus, fructu viridi ovato_, called by the natives _masch_. The Arabic _ban_, the name of the coffee berry, corresponds with our bean, and is probably its etymon.
A small fishing vessel or pilot boat, used in the rivers of Portugal. It is sharp forward, having its stem bent above into a great curve, and plated with iron.
1. A species of Anas; a migratory bird, which arrives in England in autumn, and retires to the north in summer. It is so named, from the likeness of the nail of the bill to a horse-bean.
2. Bean-tree of America, a name given to the Erythrina.
Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.
But take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt; put them in a single container and make them into bread for yourself. This is what you are to eat during the 390 days you lie on your side.
Also he remembered the injury of the children of Bean, who had been a snare and an offence unto the people, in that they lay in wait for them in the ways.
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