chef

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Pronunciation

• IPA: /ʃɛf/

Noun

chef (plural chefs)

1. The presiding cook in the kitchen of a large household.
   • <1845, R. H. Barham, Blasphemer's Warning in Ingoldsby Legends (1847), 3rd Ser., 245

     The Chef's peace of mind was restor'd, And in due time a banquet was placed on the board.

2. The head cook of a restaurant or other establishment.
   • 1849, Thackeray, Pendennis (1850), I. xxviii. 266

     The angry little chef of Sir Francis Clavering's culinary establishment.

3. Any cook.
   • Kiss the chef. (slogan on aprons used by home barbecue enthusiasts)
4. (slang) One who manufactures illegal drugs; a cook.
   • 1998, SPIN (volume 14, number 3, page 100)

     But trying to stop all the nation's meth chefs makes as much sense as building a wall along the Mexican border.

   • 2013, Mike Power, Drugs 2.0

     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 the synthesis had been embarked upon.

5. (historical) A reliquary in the shape of a head.

Synonyms

• (cook, particularly a learned or skilful one) magirist, magirologist (obs.)

Translations

• French: chef cuisinier, chef
• German: Chefkoch, Chefköchin, Küchenchef, Küchenchefin
• Italian: capocuoco
• Portuguese: chef
• Russian: шеф-по́вар
• Spanish: chef

Verb

chef (chefs, present participle cheffing; past and past participle cheffed)

1. (informal) To work as a chef; to prepare and cook food professionally.
   • 1996, Sonora Review (issue 31, page 110)

     I cheffed part-time at a nice restaurant in town.

2. (MLE, transitive) To stab with a knife, to shank, to lacerate with a rambo.

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