kitchen
Pluralkitchens
Pluralkitchens
- 1A room or area where people prepare and cook food.
Like a room set up just for cooking, the way a garage is set up for cars.
The kitchen was warm and smelled of fresh bread.
We keep the pots and pans in the kitchen.
- 2All the cabinets, counters, and built-in machines for a cooking room, bought and put in as one set.
We bought a new kitchen, and the workers put it in last week.
The kitchen came in forty boxes, and my dad built the cabinets himself.
UsageYou buy and put in a kitchen like any other product.
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- 3A way of cooking associated with a particular place or culture.
Like how music from a place has its own sound, cooking from a place has its own taste.
This cookbook is full of recipes from the Italian kitchen.
Rice and beans are at the heart of the Cuban kitchen.
UsageUse the and a place word: the Italian kitchen. Without the place word, people think of the room.
Similarcuisine, cookery, cooking
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Less common meanings
- 4In pickleball, the area near the net on each side where you may not hit the ball before it bounces.
She stepped into the kitchen to hit the ball in the air, so she lost the point.
Good players wait just behind the kitchen for a soft shot.
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- 5The hair at the back of the neck, especially when tightly curled or not combed.
Mama always pressed the kitchen at the back of my neck before church.
He kept tugging at the kitchen at the back of his neck in the humid heat.
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- 6A metal device used to roast meat in front of an open fire.
At the old farmhouse, we saw a tin kitchen once used to roast meat by the fire.
There are two modes of roasting: One is to use a tin kitchen before an open fire, and the other, and more common way, is to use a hot oven.
1897, The Warm Springs Receipt-bookHere, kitchen means a metal tool for roasting meat in front of a fire.Similarroaster
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- 7A tasty food eaten in small amounts with bread or potatoes to add flavor.
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- 8To cook and get food ready to eat.
A dress scarcely suited to woodland kitchening was defended by an apron borrowed from the maid.
1842, Caroline Matilda Kirkland, Forest Life - Volume 2 - 9To make plain food taste better by adding salt, sauce, or spices.
This was seasoned with salt and sometimes kitchened with butter.
1907, Thomas Finlayson Henderson, Francis Watt - 10To make something look nicer or fancier.
But as in his novels and other work there is a 'kitchening' of the material, a tentativeness.
2003, Patrick Kavanagh, Antoinette Quinn - 11A simple, broken form of a language, often picked up by ear rather than studied.
- 12The part of an orchestra that plays drums and other instruments you hit.
- 13On a pool table, the area behind the line near one end, where the opening break is made.
- 14A room in a casino where anyone can come in and gamble.
Showing meanings only.
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Origin
It comes from Old English "cyċen", which early Germanic took from Latin "cocīna" (earlier "coquīna", kitchen), based on "coquō" meaning "to cook".
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Kitchen comes from Old English cyċen. en.wiktionary.org
- The Latin borrowing occurred in Proto-West Germanic; Old English inherited the word. The borrowing was from Late Latin cocīna, from earlier coquīna. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin coquīna means kitchen and ultimately derives from coquō. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin coquō means to cook. en.wiktionary.org