bean [OE] Beans have long been a basic foodstuff, being one of the staple crops in early agriculture. The beans cultivated in Anglo-Saxon times would have been varieties of broad bean. To spill the beans, ‘to reveal a secret’ is an American expression from the early 20th century. Full of beans, ‘lively, in high spirits’, first recorded in the mid 19th century, originally referred to horses. Beans were a food supplement for horses, and a well-fed horse would be full of energy and vitality. There was even an adjective beany [M19th] for a spirited horse. Not worth a hill of beans, although famous from the 1942 film Casablanca, is much earlier, dating from at least the mid 19th century. Not a bean for no money goes back to a slang use of bean for a guinea [E19th]. As an insulting term for an accountant, bean counter is a US term, originating in the 1970s. The rather dated bean meaning ‘the head’ [E20th] is also originally from the US. It lives on in the close-fitting hat, the beanie [1940s].