I. ˈkichə̇n noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English kichene, kichen, from Old English cycene; akin to Old High German chuhhina kitchen, Middle Low German kökene, Middle Dutch cokene, cökene; all from a prehistoric West Germanic word borrowed from Late Latin coquina, from Latin, feminine of coquinus of cooking, from coquere to cook + -inus -ine — more at cook
1.
a. : a room or some other space (as a wall area or separate building) with facilities for cooking : a place for preparing meals
living room, dining room, and the kitchen
a soup kitchen where the starving villagers were fed
a mobile kitchen for soldiers in the field
b. : the personnel that prepares, cooks, and serves food
send orders to the kitchen
the kitchen sent up a meal
c. : a combination of kitchen fixtures including cabinets and often stove, refrigerator, and sink marketed as a unit and installed as built-in equipment
2. now chiefly Scotland : food from the kitchen ; specifically : food eaten as a side dish with other food
3.
a. : any of a series of compartments in which sublimed arsenic fumes from a furnace for treating arsenical ore and baghouse dust are condensed
b. : the laboratory of a reverberatory furnace
II. adjective
1. : of, relating to, or of a kind suitable for use in a kitchen
mop the kitchen floor
kitchen clock
a kitchen stove
2. : that works in a kitchen
a kitchen maid
3. : used as a kitchen
soldiers bringing supplies to the kitchen tent
4.
a. : constituting or having the characteristics of a pidgin language that is used largely for communication between servants and their employers when the two groups are not native speakers of the same language
b. : constituting or having the characteristics of a language as spoken by uneducated speakers
want official acceptance of their language — a sort of kitchen Dutch — Serge Fliegers
III. transitive verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
1. obsolete : to furnish food to : entertain with kitchen fare
2. chiefly Scotland
a. : to make palatable : season
b. : to serve (food) as kitchen