English · Idiom Candidate

full of beans

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Sense 1

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Talking nonsense or exaggerating

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Nói chuyện vô nghĩa hoặc phóng đại

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: containing beans

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

In one nursery school there were 150 children, gaily dressed and full of beans.

He seemed full of beans though, and after he had given me a rundown on the life cycle of the polyp, three nurses wheeled me across the corridor and into another room.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Sense 2

Meaning · English

arrogant, purseproud. A person whom sudden prosperity has made offensive and conceited, is said to be too "FULL OF BEANS." Originally stable slang.

Era: ca. 1874 (Victorian)

Where it’s used: Origin British & Irish English

Sources & notes

Historical definition reproduced from Hotten’s The Slang Dictionary (1874, public domain; Project Gutenberg #42108, retrieved 2026-07-31). Reflects the attitudes of its era.

Topics: Food Historical slang (1800s)

Common questions

What does “full of beans” mean?

Talking nonsense or exaggerating Literally: containing beans

Is “full of beans” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.