old bean

Possibly from playful mid-word substitution of "boy" in "old boy"

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old bean (plural old beans)

1. (British, slang, dated, sometimes as a term of address) An old friend; an old chap or fellow.
   • 1876, The Atlantic Monthly, volume 37, page 238:

     […] it is really an uncommon piece of exaggerative imagination which we find in the description of this old bean's elaborate costume, with its pads, straps, strings […]

   • 1905, H. G. Wells, Kipps, vi. §4:

     When this here old Bean told me, you could have knocked me down with a feather.

• old boy
• old chap

• Bleadon, donable