kitchen

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a room equipped for preparing meals

   My kitchen has a dishwasher and a refrigerator.

2. 2
   noun

   A room or area for preparing food.

   We cook in the kitchen.

3. 3
   noun

   Cuisine; style of cooking.

   I had been trained with the rigidity and discipline of the French kitchen, and now I was embracing American informality.

4. 4
   noun

   The percussion section of an orchestra.

   For obvious reasons the percussion is normally arranged along the back of the platform, whether centrally or to one side, and sometimes also in two tiers, the heavy, noisier instruments behind, and the pitched, agile instruments such as vibraphone, marimba, etc. in front. An outstanding exception, however, exists in Roberto Gerhard's Epithalamion where the composer expressly desired that the all-important kitchen department be spread out in front of the strings and hence nearest the audience.

5. 5
   noun

   A utensil for roasting meat.

   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.

6. 6
   noun

   A domesticated or uneducated form of a language.

   Sir Henry and Umbopo sat conversing in a mixture of broken English and kitchen Zulu, in low voices, but earnestly enough.

7. 7
   noun

   A public gaming room in a casino.

   Having done what was required to gain admittance to the "kitchen," as the public rooms are termed, as well as to the more exclusive "Salle Privée" […]

8. 8
   noun

   Anything eaten as a relish with bread, potatoes, etc.; a condiment.

   “They,” said he, meaning the collops, “are such as I gave his Royal Highness in this very house; bating the lemon juice, for at that time we were glad to get the meat and never fashed for kitchen. Indeed, there were mair dragoons than lemons in my country in the year forty-six.”

Etymology

From Middle English kichene, kichen, from Old English cyċen, cyċene, from Proto-West Germanic *kukinā, a borrowing from Late Latin cocīna, from earlier coquīna (“kitchen; cuisine”), from coquō (“to cook”), from Proto-Indo-European *pekʷ- (“to cook, become ripe”). In other languages, the cognate term often refers both to the room and the type of cooking. In English, the distinction is generally made via the etymological twins kitchen (“room”) (Latin via Germanic) and cuisine (“type of cooking”) (Latin via French).