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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

chef.

The presiding cook in the kitchen of a large household.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ʃɛf//t͡ʃɛf/

  1. The presiding cook in the kitchen of a large household.

  2. The head cook of a restaurant or other establishment.

  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.

    slang

  5. A reliquary in the shape of a head.

    historical
Where this word comes from

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.

verb/ʃɛf//t͡ʃɛf/

  1. To work as a chef; to prepare and cook food professionally.

    informal · stative

  2. To stab with a knife, to shank.

    Multicultural-London-English · transitive
    He got cheffed up proper.

  3. To impress others.

    Internet
Where this word comes from

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.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.