1. Eaten fresh as shell beans or dried
   "The salad featured chilled black-eyed beans and diced tomatoes";
   - black-eyed pea [N. Amer], cowpea, black-eye bean [Brit]
    
2. Fruit or seed of the cowpea plant
   "She soaked the black-eyed beans overnight before cooking";
   - cowpea, black-eyed pea [N. Amer], black-eye bean [Brit]
    
3. A climbing or sprawling annual legume native to Africa, widely cultivated for its edible beans, animal fodder, and soil improvement
   "black-eyed beans thrive in the hot summers of the American South";
   - cowpea, cowpea plant, black-eyed pea [N. Amer], Vigna unguiculata, Vigna sinensis, black-eye bean [Brit]

Derived forms: black-eyed beans

Type of: legume, leguminous plant

Part of: genus Vigna, Vigna

Encyclopedia: Black-eyed bean