chef

The presiding cook in the kitchen of a large household.

Noun

  1. 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
  2. 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...
  3. Any cook.
    • My partner is the chef of the household, while I do most of the cleaning.
  4. 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...
  5. A reliquary in the shape of a head.

Origin

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.

Forms

chefs

Synonyms

magirist magirologist

Hypernyms

cook

Related

chef de cuisine chef de mission chef de rang chef d'oeuvre chef d'œuvre chef-d'œuvre

Derived

autochef chefdom chefess cheffery cheffy chefless cheflike chefling chefly chefmanship Chef Mike chefnap chef salad chef's kiss cheftender chefware chef watcher chefwear head chef nonchef pastry chef robochef short-order chef station chef

Verb

  1. 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:
    • 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:
  2. To stab with a knife, to shank.
    • He got cheffed up proper.
    • Still on my knife work chef him up with that rambo - 2016, “Skeng Man”, ASAP of 67 (lyrics):
    • Child just said he'd "chef me up". I said not hungry, but it restored my faith in young generation, offering to cook for strangers. - 2017 June 13, @louistheroux, Twitter, archived from the original on 08 Nov 2023:

    Synonyms: ching splash chef chib chive enthrill foin gore gride jab job juke kebab knifecrime lancinate pigstick pink poach run through shank shiv spear speet stab

  3. To impress others.
    • thinkin' that I be cheffin'.' - 2020, “Drip Like Me”, performed by Kenndog:

Forms

chefs cheffing cheffed

Derived

cheffer