Etymologically
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kitchen

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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Cooking itself, the culinary art, is recorded from the 14th century but is obsolete,[8] and a kitchen as the culinary department, a cuisine, is from 1679.[8] The kitchen as the stomach is from about 1470.[8] The kitchen cabinet, an informal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

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)