chef
/ʃɛf/
chef noun: the presiding cook in the kitchen of a large household.
Noun
chef (plural chefs)
- The presiding cook in the kitchen of a large household.
- The Chef's peace of mind was restor'd, And in due time a banquet was placed on the board.a. 1845, R. H. Barham, Blasphemer's Warning in Ingoldsby Legends (1847), 3rd Ser., 245
- The head cook of a restaurant or other establishment.
- The cause of the disturbance, it appeared, was the angry little chef of Sir Francis Clavering's culinary establishment.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Which Is Both Quarrelsome and Sentimental”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume I, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849...
- Any cook.
- My partner is the chef of the household, while I do most of the cleaning.
- The videos are easy to follow — and short. His style is consistent and effective; his recipes have built a microcosm of predominantly young, first-time chefs with a penchant for TikTok-able entertainment. “I’m just a regular guy, and not a chef at all,” Nguyen said.2020 May 7, Genesia Ting, “How Newton Nguyen is inspiring a young generation of home chefs”, in Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles Times Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from...
- One who manufactures illegal drugs; a cook.
- But trying to stop all the nation's meth chefs makes as much sense as building a wall along the Mexican border.1998, SPIN, volume 14, number 3, page 100
- Owsley Stanley, the world's most exacting and prolific LSD chef who supplied the majority of America's West Coast with LSD in the 1960s, claimed he made so much acid not because he wanted to change the world, but rather because it was almost impossible not to make vast quantities of the drug once...2013, Mike Power, Drugs 2.0
- Synonyms:
- magirist, magirologist
- A reliquary in the shape of a head.
Verb
chef (third-person singular simple present chefs, present participle cheffing, simple past and past participle cheffed)
- To work as a chef; to prepare and cook food professionally.
- It was Brick who talked on alumni relations with the active chapters and who cheffed at our steak fry (more of that later) and Mrs. Cowles who took over […]1953, The Deke Quarterly, volume 71, number 4, page 32
- I cheffed part-time at a nice restaurant in town.1996, Sonora Review, number 31, page 110
- To stab with a knife, to shank.
- He got cheffed up proper.
- Still on my knife work chef him up with that rambo2016, “Skeng Man”, ASAP of 67 (lyrics)
- To impress others.
- thinkin' that I be cheffin'.'2020, “Drip Like Me”, performed by Kenndog
chef meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
chef in Hindi
- head cook of an establishment such as a restaurant
- बावरची bāvarcī
chef in Tamil
- அயிலர், சமையல்காரர்
chef in Marathi
- शेफ
chef in Urdu
- head cook of an establishment such as a restaurant
- باورچی bāvarcī, آش پز āś-paz, طباخ tabbāx
More languagesFewer languages
- chef in Bengali
- বাবুর্চি baburci
- chef in Malayalam
- പാചകവിദഗ്ദ്ധൻ, ഹോട്ടൽപാചകക്കാരൻ, പാചകത്തലവൻ, പെരുമടയൻ
- chef in Kannada
- ಅಟ್ಟುಳಿಗ, ಅಡಿಗೆಯವ, ಪಾಕಶಾಸ್ತ್ರಜ್ಞ, ಅಡುಗೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ನಿಸ್ಸೀಮ
- chef in Punjabi
- ਸ਼ੈੱਫ, ਸ਼ੈੱਫ਼
- chef in Gujarati
- રસોઇયા, શેફ
- chef in Odia
- ଶେଫ୍
- chef in Nepali
- शेफ
- chef in Arabic
- طَاهٍ ṭāhin, طَاهِي ṭāhī, شِيف šīf, طَاهِيَة ṭāhiya
- chef in Persian
- سرآشپز sar-âšpaz
- chef in Thai
- หัวหน้าพ่อครัว hǔua-nâa-pɔ̂ɔ-kruua, เชฟ chéep
- chef in Vietnamese
- bếp trưởng
Examples of chef in a sentence
- He opened Oakleys in 2002, having formerly cheffed at the late, much-missed Something Different and, before that, world-renowned kitchens in Chicago […]2007, Indianapolis Monthly, page 68:
- A man called Richard Briggs cheffed at the Globe Tavern on Fleet Street, the White Hart Tavern in Holborn and the Temple Coffee House.2020, William Sitwell, The Restaurant: A History of Eating Out, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:
- It was to do with Svenson's op - they cheffed him up a couple of month or something, a couple of months before.2019 October 9, Manuel Petrovic, quotee, “Jodie Chesney: Killer targeted 'wrong people' court told”, in BBC News, archived from the...
Synonyms of chef
20 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of chef
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | chefs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | chefs |
| present participle | cheffing |
| past participle | cheffed |
| past | cheffed |
Origin of chef
Unadapted borrowing from French chef (from the positions of chef d'office and chef de cuisine), from Old French chief (“head, leader”) (English chief), from Vulgar Latin capus (“head”) (from which also captain, chieftain), from Latin caput (“head”) (possibly related to English cap (“head covering”)). Doublet of cape, capo, caput, and chief through Latin, and head and Howth through Proto-Indo-European.
Words formed from chef
Phrases with chef
Words that rhyme with chef
Questions about chef
- What does chef mean?
- Chef means the presiding cook in the kitchen of a large household.
- What is chef in Hindi?
- Chef in Hindi is बावरची (bāvarcī). See Chef meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use chef in a sentence?
- He opened Oakleys in 2002, having formerly cheffed at the late, much-missed Something Different and, before that, world-renowned kitchens in Chicago […]
- What part of speech is chef?
- Chef can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce chef?
- Chef is pronounced /ʃɛf/.
- What is the plural of chef?
- The plural of chef is chefs.
Words near chef in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: chef (page history and authors); chef (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); chef (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chef (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); chef (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); chef (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chef (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chef (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chef (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-chef.ogg.
Cite this entry: “chef.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chef. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.