culinary
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of culinary
1630–40; < Latin culīnārius of the kitchen, equivalent to culīn ( a ) kitchen, food + -ārius -ary
Explanation
Culinary means having to do with cooking or the kitchen. If you go to culinary school, you're learning how to cook, most likely because you want to work as a chef. If you have a culinary streak, you might love cooking for your friends or maybe just watching cooking shows on TV. If your culinary repertoire includes nothing beyond tuna sandwiches and mac-and-cheese out of the box, you have a lot to learn, culinarily speaking!
Vocabulary lists containing culinary
Eat Your Words
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
The First Rule of Punk
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
With the Fire on High
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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.
“Miss You, Love You” “Vince Vaughn’s lightweight culinary comedy, ‘Nonnas,’ managed to earn a nomination for Netflix in 2025.
From Los Angeles Times • May 21, 2026
Taiwanese author Yang Shuang-zi and translator Lin King won the International Booker Prize on Tuesday for "Taiwan Travelogue", a playful postcolonial novel with a culinary bent.
From Barron's • May 19, 2026
For many Londoners of South Asian heritage, mango season is a cultural moment as much as a culinary one.
From BBC • May 13, 2026
Soon, we were back on the vaporetto for a sunset ride to Al Covo, the culinary high-water mark of our family trip to Venice a decade earlier—and our parents’ honeymoon 25 years before that.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 2, 2026
He urged Chicago hostesses to hire some French chefs to improve their culinary diction.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
