Word.ws English Dictionary

food-grade

food-grade adjective: suitable for human or animal food.

Adjective

food-grade (not comparable)

  1. Suitable for human or animal food.
    • food-grade rice starch
    • Kelcogel food-grade gellan gum is described for special uses in the food industry.1997, A. Nussinovitch, Hydrocolloid Applications: Gum Technology in the Food and Other Industries, page 65
  2. Permitted to be used with or to contact food; safe for use with or around food.
    • food-grade plastic
    • Food-grade lubricants are made for meat and poultry and other food-processing equipment. These lubricants are generally registered with the National Sanitary Foundation (NSF).2011, Sibtain Hamid, “Food-grade hydraulic fluids”, in George Totten, editor, Handbook of Hydraulic Fluid Technology, 2nd edition, page 915

Origin of food-grade

From food + grade. Originally US.

Questions about food-grade

What does food-grade mean?
Food-grade means suitable for human or animal food.
What part of speech is food-grade?
Food-grade is an adjective.

Words near food-grade in the dictionary

  1. food-borne illnesses
  2. food-derived illness
  3. food-derived illnesses
  4. food-fall
  5. food-falls
  6. food-grade
  7. food-insecure
  8. food-literate
  9. food-secure
  10. food-to-go
  11. food-truck

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: food-grade (page history and authors). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-food-grade.wav.

Cite this entry: “food-grade.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/food-grade. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.