beef
Meanings
Noun
- cattle that are reared for their meat
- meat from an adult domestic bovine
- informal terms for objecting
- The meat from cattle or other bovines.
- The edible portions of a cow (including those which are not meat).
- The meat from cattle or other bovines.
- Muscle or musculature; size, strength or potency.
- The meat from cattle or other bovines.
- Essence, content; the important part of a document or project.
- The meat from cattle or other bovines.
- Bovine animals.
- A bovine (cow or bull) being raised for its meat.
- 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)
- Fibrous calcite or limestone, especially when occurring in a jagged layer between shales in Dorset.
Verb
- complain
- To complain.
- To add weight or strength to.
- To fart; break wind.
- To cry.
- To fail or mess up.
- To feud or hold a grudge against.
- To sing or speak loudly; to cry out.
Adj
- Being a bovine animal that is being raised for its meat.
- Producing or known for raising lots of beef.
- Consisting of or containing beef as an ingredient.
- Beefy; powerful; robust.
Origin / Etymology
PIE word
*gʷṓws
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. However, 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.
Synonyms
beef cattle, beef up, bellyache, bitch, boeuf, cowflesh, crab, gripe, grouse, holler, kick, meat, oxflesh, squawk
Scrabble Score: 9
beef is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordbeef is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
beef is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary