- a cook in charge of a kitchen, as of a restaurant; head cook
- any cook
Origin of chef
French from chef de cuisine, literally , head of the kitchen: see chief
A chef putting the finishing touches on a plate of pasta.
The definition of a chef is a person who cooks for a living, or a cook who manages a kitchen staff.
Someone who has a job cooking at a fine dining restaurant is an example of a chef.
YourDictionary definition and usage example. Copyright © 2018 by LoveToKnow Corp
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"chef." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 14 March 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/Chef>.
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chef. (n.d.). Retrieved March 14th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/Chef
chef
Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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"chef." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 14 March 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/Chef>.
APA Style
chef. (n.d.). Retrieved March 14th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/Chef
chef
noun
A cook, especially the chief cook of a large kitchen staff.
Origin of chef
French short for chef de cuisine chef de cuisine ; see chef de cuisine .THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FIFTH EDITION by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Copyright © 2016, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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MLA Style
"chef." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 14 March 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/Chef>.
APA Style
chef. (n.d.). Retrieved March 14th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/Chef
Noun
(plural chefs)
- The presiding cook in the kitchen of a large household
- The head cook of a restaurant or other establishment
- Any cook
Usage notes
When used in reference to a cook with no sous chefs or other workers beneath him, the term is connotes a certain degree of prestige—whether culinary education or ability—distinguishing the chef from a “cook”. As a borrowing, chef was originally italicized, but such treatment is now obsolete.
Origin
Borrowing from French chef (from the positions of chef d'office and chef de cuisine), from Old French chief (“head, leader”) (English chief), from Late Latin capum (“head”) (from which also captain, chieftain), from Latin caput (“head”) (English cap (“head covering”)), from Proto-Indo-European *kauput- (English head).
English Wiktionary. Available under CC-BY-SA license.
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MLA Style
"chef." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 14 March 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/Chef>.
APA Style
chef. (n.d.). Retrieved March 14th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/Chef
Sentence Examples
- His refutation of Hume's objection to the truth of miracles is perhaps his intellectual chef-d'ceuvre.
- By 1794 he was adjutant-general (with the rank of chef de brigade).
- By this time he had already entered into politics; he had been chef du cabinet of Jules Ferry (1879-1881), though this did not distract him from his literary work.
- In 1808 he was created a count of the empire, and in 1811 he retired from the army with the grade of chef de brigade.
- His extraordinary aptitude for work secured for him the position of chef de cabinet under Paul Bert, the minister of education, in 1881.
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