# chef

Pronunciation: say "SHEF" /ʃɛf/

## Noun

1. Any person who cooks, whether at home or professionally.
   - Simple: Any person who cooks food, whether for fun or for a living.
   - _Even an amateur chef can master a simple omelet with practice._
   - _Each member of the household took turns as chef for the evening._
2. The head cook in charge of the kitchen of a restaurant, hotel, or large household.
   - Simple: The main cook who runs a kitchen, such as in a restaurant.
   - _The chef expedited every order before it left the kitchen._
   - _She worked her way up to head chef at a celebrated bistro._
4. A person who manufactures illegal drugs, often in a makeshift lab. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A person who makes illegal drugs.
   - _Police said the chef had been cooking meth in a trailer behind the house._
   - _He served as the gang's chef, cooking batches in a rented basement._

## Verb

3. To work professionally preparing and cooking food in a kitchen. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: To cook food for a living in a professional kitchen.
   - _She has cheffed at several acclaimed kitchens across the country._
   - _They chef together at a small bistro near the harbor._
5. To stab someone with a knife or similar sharp blade. *(dialectal, Multicultural London English)*
   - Simple: To stab someone with a knife.
   - _"He got cheffed outside the station last night," his friend told the police._
   - _In the track, he raps about boys on the estate who would chef you over a stolen phone._

## Other meanings

- (verb) To make a strong, favorable impression on other people.
- (noun) A reliquary made in the shape of a head, used to hold a saint's relics.

## Origin

An unadapted borrowing from French chef (from titles like chef de cuisine, 'head of the kitchen'), from Old French chief ('head, leader'), from Vulgar Latin capus ('head'), from Latin caput ('head'). It is a doublet of cape, capo, caput, and chief, and is related to head through Proto-Indo-European.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/chef (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).