beef
Americannoun
-
beeves,
plural
-
beefs
plural
-
the flesh of a cow, steer, or bull raised and killed for its meat.
-
an adult cow, steer, or bull raised for its meat.
-
Informal.
-
brawn; muscular strength.
-
strength; power.
-
weight, as of a person.
-
human flesh.
-
-
Slang.
-
a complaint.
-
an argument or dispute.
-
verb (used without object)
-
beefs,
present (3rd person singular)
-
beefed,
past participle, past
-
beefing
present participle
verb phrase
noun
-
the flesh of various bovine animals, esp the cow, when killed for eating
-
an adult ox, bull, cow, etc, reared for its meat
-
informal human flesh, esp when muscular
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a complaint
verb
-
slang (intr) to complain, esp repeatedly
he was beefing about his tax
-
informal to strengthen; reinforce
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
beefsimple
-
beefssimple
-
have beefedperfect
-
has beefedperfect
-
am beefingprogressive
-
are beefingprogressive
-
is beefingprogressive
-
have been beefingperfect progressive
-
has been beefingperfect progressive
Past
-
beefedsimple
-
had beefedperfect
-
was beefingprogressive
-
were beefingprogressive
-
had been beefingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of beef
First recorded in 1250–1300; 1885–90 beef for def. 5; Middle English, from Anglo-French beof, Old French boef, from Latin bov- (stem of bōs ) “ox, cow”; akin to cow 1
Explanation
Beef is meat from a cow. It's also a word for a complaint. If you have a beef with someone, you’re not sharing a steak, you have a gripe. Just don’t beef to a cow; her problems are worse. Beef is a type of meat from cattle. If you've ever had a hamburger, you've had beef. The word beef comes from the Old French word buef, which became the word for basically, cow meat. Beef is to cow as pork is to pig or mutton is to sheep. On the other hand, if you have a beef with someone, you have a complaint. Beefing is expressing such feelings.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The analysis included a broad range of red meats, such as beef, lamb, pork, rabbit, goat, and game.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 18, 2026
R&B icon Stephanie Mills revealed she had an unresolved beef with “Mother Monster” Lady Gaga.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2026
She remembers paying $2 a pound for ground beef; now she is paying $8, she said.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026
“There is everything in the perfect bite,” Moore said of the vaunted marriage of ground beef, shredded cheese, iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and rich sour cream in a corn shell.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
Kinko spends the first few hours of the jump to Chicago using bits of beef jerky to teach Queenie, who has apparently recovered from her diarrhea, to walk on her hind legs.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
One of the beefs homeowners have with PWCs—and so called “wake boats”—is that the waves they generate can slam moored boats into docks and erode shorelines.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2026
The new law beefs up the penalties for those that flout the ban.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026
Revisit one of rap’s most infamous beefs: Decades after Tupac Shakur’s killing, there’s been a conviction.
From Slate ● Sep. 1, 2026
In the history of musical beefs, some cuts reign supreme.
From Salon ● May 16, 2026
In my lunch group, we dissected whatever had gone on that morning at school, any beefs we had with teachers, any assignments that struck us as useless.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
But Bessent’s image of immigrants smuggling their infected beeves across the border is transparent fantasy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 19, 2025
He described it as “a few hundred acres of dirt, some clusters of old barns and outbuildings… a few beeves and hogs or a flock of sheep.”
From Salon ● Oct. 18, 2012
None of these prize beeves has yet offered the Angel a bout, but if he mops up the rest of the herd, the champs may have to face him or quit.
From Time Magazine Archive
Besides beeves it sometimes afflicts sheep, goats, hogs, horses, dogs, cats, camels, buffalo, bison, antelope, chamois, llama, giraffe.
From Time Magazine Archive
But if you raid the beeves, I see destruction for ship and crew.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
The rules take effect as Beijing has beefed up its export control regime—including on items like rare-earth minerals—and enacted a network of laws to prevent individuals and businesses from complying with foreign sanctions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
Or three letters for “Rapper who famously beefed with Jay-Z”? Try your hand at today’s crossword!
From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2026
A company called Bear-ier Solutions recently beefed up her wiring after a bear surprised Ziegler when she returned with balloons in hand on her 91st birthday.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
He himself lives in London, where Cohere recently beefed up its offices.
From Barron's ● Jun. 18, 2026
This tally of instruments, occasionally beefed up by timpani and trumpets, was the template for the classical orchestra as used by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and their contemporaries.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
And finally, with the SEC opening the door to tokenized equities, they explain what it means for stocks to be traded like crypto—and why AMC is beefing with Robinhood over it.
From Slate ● Sep. 19, 2026
Takaichi has also accelerated a beefing up of Japan's military capabilities as its sheds its strict pacifist stance in place since the war.
From Barron's ● Aug. 15, 2026
Picking up the pace is a worthy goal, he said, but that would mean beefing up the workforce, disrupting traffic and commerce with more street closures, and asking customers to write bigger checks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026
With no day-to-day responsibilities at work, he spent his time focused on beefing up TFA’s roster.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 28, 2026
It’s not that he was beefing with our father or that they didn’t get along—I take that back.
From "All American Boys" by Jason Reynolds
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
