beef

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The meat from cattle, such as cows or bulls.

   We had roast beef for dinner on Sunday.

2. 2
   noun

   A complaint or grudge against someone.

   He still has a beef with his old boss.

3. 3
   verb

   To complain.

   Stop beefing about the food and just eat it.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Beef entered Middle English from French, unlike the native English animal names cow and ox, although beef has also denoted the living animal since Middle English. Its sense “complaint,” and the corresponding verb “complain,” arose in American English in the mid-19th century.

PIE word *gʷṓws From Middle English beef, bef, beof, borrowed from Anglo-Norman beof, Old French buef, boef (“ox”) (modern French bœuf); from Latin bovem (“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 Sug…

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