kitchen

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈkɪtʃ.ɪn/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English kuchene, kichene,^[2] inherited from Old English cyċene,^[3][2][4] which with Middle Dutch cökene, Old High German chuhhina, German Küche and Danish kjøkken goes back to Proto-West Germanic *kokina,^[3][2][5] probably borrowed from Vulgar Latin *cocīna,^[3][2][6] a variant of Latin coquīna (“kitchen”),^[3][2] the feminine of coquīnus “of cooks”, from coquus (“cook”), from coquere “to cook”,^[3][2][6] from Proto-Indo-European *pekw- (“to cook, ripen”).^[3][6] The same Latin word gave French cuisine and Spanish cocina.^[3][7] Barnhart notes that Old High German chuhhina was borrowed before the High German consonant shift.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The room where food is cooked: about 1000 in the OED,^[8] and Old English about 1000 in Barnhart.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Cooking itself, the culinary art, is recorded from the 14th century but is obsolete,^[8] and a kitchen as the culinary department, a cuisine, is from 1679.^[8] The kitchen as the stomach is from about 1470.^[8] The kitchen cabinet, an informal but powerful set of advisers, is American slang from 1832,^[3] first of President Andrew Jackson's intimates.^[3] The kitchen midden of archaeology (1863) translates Danish kjøkkenmødding.^[3] Everything but the kitchen sink seems to come from forces slang of the Second World War, of a heavy bombardment.^[9] A kitchenette is American, from 1910.^[2] In 1931 the kitchen was slang for the percussion section of a band.^[8] In Scots and northern dialect, kitchen is also anything eaten with bread or potatoes as a relish, and the verb, from 1721, means to season or to make go far.^[8][10]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – a room for cooking.^[8][2]
• c. 1470 – figuratively, the stomach.^[8]
• 1679 – the culinary department.^[8]
• 1721 – Scots verb, to season.^[8]
• 1832 – kitchen cabinet.^[3]
• 1910 – kitchenette.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A room or area equipped for preparing and cooking food.
2. A style of cooking; cuisine.
3. The staff who prepare, cook and serve food, as in a restaurant.

Word family

• kitchenless
• kitcheny
• outkitchen
• kitchenette
• kitchener
• kitchenware
• diet kitchen
• summer kitchen

Related words

• cook
• cuisine
• culinary

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)