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
-
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:
R&B icon Stephanie Mills revealed she had an unresolved beef with “Mother Monster” Lady Gaga.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2026
Food sources such as chicken, beef, salmon and tofu contain all the essential amino acids.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2026
But Wolfinger did not factor the Iran War, tariffs or foreign beef imports into his planning.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 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
“Time to face the dinner plate,” Mom murmured, grimacing as the smell of burnt beef and sour tomato sauce filled the room.
From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas
The new law beefs up the penalties for those that flout the ban.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026
American business and Silicon Valley, in particular, are littered with classic beefs fueled by ambition, greed and green-eyed jealousy: the late Steve Jobs vs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 7, 2026
A large portion of this is because the hip-hop industry has mistreated Megan with exploitative record deals, beefs with rappers and the spread of misinformation online.
From Salon ● Nov. 1, 2024
You may not typically think of WordPress, the blogging platform turned ubiquitous content management system, as a workplace rife with corporate drama, or as an instigator of petty public beefs.
From Slate ● Oct. 11, 2024
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
Probably not, because only a minute proportion of Brazil's beeves have been fattened with the aid of hormones.
From Time Magazine Archive
At that, 50,000 people applauded, fell upon 1.000 barbecued beeves, 130,000 foot-long sandwiches, downed gallons of lemonade.
From Time Magazine Archive
But if you raid the beeves, I see destruction for ship and crew.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
In recent years, Pyongyang has beefed up its border fortifications, laying new land mines, constructing new walls and building antitank barriers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
Municipalities have set up dedicated observation points and beefed up security, emergency and transport resources in the hope of managing the mayhem during mainland Spain's first total eclipse in more than a century.
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
Or three letters for “Rapper who famously beefed with Jay-Z”? Try your hand at today’s crossword!
From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2026
Sebastian Capital, the Manhattan company that manages the 723-acre site, said it has beefed up security and appreciates the help from police.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 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
He tried switching to TikTok ads and beefing up the club’s email list.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
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
Even so, there are plenty of steps ex-smokers can take to boost the benefits from quitting, from changing their diet to beefing up their exercise regimen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
Automakers from Hyundai to GM are beefing up their certified used-car programs, covering cars for longer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 6, 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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