beef

English Online Dictionary. What means beef‎? What does beef mean?

English

Etymology

From Middle English beef, bef, beof, borrowed from Anglo-Norman beof, Old French buef, boef (“ox”) (modern French bœuf); from Latin bōs (“ox”), from Proto-Italic *gʷōs, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws. Doublet of cow.

Beef in the sense of “a grudge, argument” was originally an American slang expression:

• attested as a verb “to complain” in 1888: “He'll beef an' kick like a steer an' let on he won't never wear 'em.”— New York World, 13 May;
• attested as a noun “complaint, protest, grievance, sim.” in 1899: “He made a Horrible Beef because he couldn't get Loaf Sugar for his Coffee.”—Fables in Slang (1900) by George Ade, page 80.

As to the possible origin of this American usage, it has been suggested that it can be traced back to a British expression for “alarm”, first recorded in 1725: "BEEF 'to alarm, as To cry beef upon us; they have discover'd us, and are in Pursuit of us". The term "beef" in this context would be a Cockney rhyming slang of thief. The continuous use of a similar expression, including its assumed semantic shift to 'complaint' in the United States from the 1880s onwards, needs further clarification though.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /bif/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /biːf/
• Rhymes: -iːf

Noun

beef (countable and uncountable, plural beef or beefs or beeves)

2. (uncountable) The meat from cattle or other bovines.

   Synonyms: cowflesh, oxflesh

   Hyponym: veal

   1. (in the meat industry, on product packaging) The edible portions of a cow (including those which are not meat).

   2. (by extension, slang, uncountable) Muscle or musculature; size, strength or potency.

   3. (figurative, slang, uncountable) Essence, content; the important part of a document or project.

      Synonym: meat

3. (uncountable) Bovine animals.
4. (now chiefly Canada, US, countable, now uncommon, plural beeves) A bovine (cow or bull) being raised for its meat.
   • 1903 March, Henry Mason Baum, Frederick Bennett Wright, George Frederick Wright, Records of the Past, volume II, part III, page 87, translating the laws of Hammurabi:

     263. If he [one to whom a beef or sheep is loaned] ruins the beef or sheep that was loaned him, he is to return to the owner a beef for a beef and a sheep for a sheep.

   • 1920–1930, Photo in the North Dakota State Museum:

     Cutting out a Beef for branding
5. (slang, uncountable or countable, plural beefs) A grudge; dislike (of something or someone); lack of faith or trust (in something or someone); a reason for a dislike or grudge. (often + with)
6. (Dorset) Fibrous calcite or limestone, especially when occurring in a jagged layer between shales in Dorset.

Usage notes

A calf is a bovine, so, technically, the flesh of a calf, used for food, is beef. However, it is not common to use this term for the flesh of a calf; instead, it is referred to with the more specific term veal.

Derived terms

Related terms

• bovine

Descendants

• → Portuguese: bife
• → Spanish: bife

Translations

See also

• beefwood

Verb

beef (third-person singular simple present beefs, present participle beefing, simple past and past participle beefed)

1. (intransitive, slang) To complain.
2. (transitive, slang) To add weight or strength to.

   Synonym: beef up
3. (intransitive, slang) To fart; break wind.

4. (intransitive, chiefly Yorkshire) To cry.

5. (transitive, slang) To fail or mess up.

6. (chiefly African-American Vernacular, MLE, MTE, intransitive, slang) To feud or hold a grudge against.

7. (intransitive, slang, Australia) To sing or speak loudly; to cry out.

Derived terms

Adjective

beef (not comparable)

1. Being a bovine animal that is being raised for its meat.

2. Producing or known for raising lots of beef.

3. Consisting of or containing beef as an ingredient.

4. (slang) Beefy; powerful; robust.

Related terms

• beefy

Translations

References

Anagrams

• Feeb, feeb

Afrikaans

Pronunciation

Verb

beef (present beef, present participle bewende, past participle gebeef)

1. Alternative form of bewe

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -eːf

Verb

beef

1. inflection of beven:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative