beef

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“
I'll admit the beef is a bit tough.

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Definitions (25)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (7)

  1. noun A full-grown steer, bull, ox, or cow, especially one intended for use as meat.
  2. noun The flesh of a slaughtered full-grown steer, bull, ox, or cow.
  3. noun Informal Human muscle; brawn.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (12)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

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Examples (46)

  • Can be found in nearly every sandwich and Italian beef-serving joint in the Chicago area, but the oil-based variety is hard to find elsewhere Roadfood.com Giardiniera Preparation Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 0 minutes Servings: 6 For many Italian beef eaters in Chicago, a lode of giardiniera atop the beef is as essential as the beef itself.
  • But the question is worth considering, whether the English people do not now lose more by taxation resulting from the chronic state of rebellion in Ireland than she gains by bringing in American beef and flour, and foreign butter and butterine, free, to the impoverishment of Ireland, and of the agricultural portions of England and Scotland? —  The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent
  • Seasoned only with a little sea salt, the beef is about as natural as it gets. —  PR Newswire: All Releases
  • I hear his beef, his biggest beef is the money ... —  NY Daily News
  • In this case the beef is the money it will take to pay for his grandiose plans and programs, and that money is allegedly lining the pockets of those who dare to earn $250,000 or more a year.
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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

pork ·  meat ·  chicken ·  potato ·  steak ·  rice ·  butter ·  vegetable ·  soup ·  biscuit ·  veal ·  venison

Used in the same contextWord Family

beef:   beefing ·  beefed ·  beefs
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Old French buef, from Latin bōs, bov-; see gwou- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Early modern English also beefe, beafe, biefe, etc., from Middle English beef, befe, beof, bouf, boef, from Old French boef, buef, boeuf = Provencal bov = Spanish buey = Portuguese boi = Italian bove (cf. Swedish biff, Danish böf, beef, from English; and see beefsteak), from Latin bovem, accusative of bos (see Bos and bovine), = Greek βοῦς, an ox, = Irish and Gaelic bo, a cow, = Welsh buw = Sanskrit go, a cow, = Anglo-Saxon cū, English cow: see cow, which is thus ult. identical with beef.
 

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