adjective
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like beef
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informal muscular; brawny
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informal fleshy; obese
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of beefy
Explanation
Someone who's beefy has a big, dense, muscular body. Your beefy, loud-voiced gym teacher might turn out to be a sweet and thoughtful person. The adjective beefy is a bit derogatory — in other words, it's not exactly used as a compliment. If you describe a person as beefy, you imply that not only is he large, strong, and brawny, he might also be somewhat dense. You could also use the word to mean "tasting like beef," although that's much less common. The word dates from 1743, from the sense of "human muscle."
Vocabulary lists containing beefy
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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:
In that spirit, Nissan plans to start selling in China a beefy off-road SUV called the Terrano within two years.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
At the start of this year, beefy pickups and SUVs were back in favor on Wall Street.
From Barron's ● Mar. 20, 2026
The first person we visited in Slovyansk was Oleh Tkachenko, a beefy middle-aged pastor who has built up a remarkable relief operation.
From BBC ● Feb. 24, 2026
Classic moves lean umami-heavy: think beefy gravy for a poutine and disco fries, chili for the diner classic.
From Salon ● Sep. 16, 2025
Morpho was big and beefy, like a superstrong bodybuilder.
From "A Monster of a Mystery (The Hardy Boys: Secret Files, #5)" by Franklin W. Dixon
That means they skirt the border of being objects called brown dwarfs, which are beefier than proper planets but don’t have quite enough oomph to ignite nuclear fusion in their cores to become true stars.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 6, 2023
An urgency to move away from fossil fuels is leading to a rush - particularly in Europe - for bigger and beefier heat pump systems that can power entire towns.
From BBC ● May 29, 2023
The beefier Wildcats scored 30 points in the paint and made it tough for the Trojans to get into any kind of offensive rhythm.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 19, 2023
This is not the Calhoun of the vice-presidential years — that Calhoun, circa 1825 to 1832, was beefier, clean-shaven and well-coiffed.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 21, 2022
There was the fact that they were an unusually big and athletic bunch, averaging 190 pounds, beefier and stronger on average than the juniors and seniors.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
Electric versions of the industry’s beefiest SUVs and pickups are stark embodiments of America’s EV reckoning.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2025
In Pennsylvania, John Fetterman rose to prominence as the biggest, beefiest lieutenant governor the land had ever seen.
From Slate ● Nov. 2, 2022
While acts might have once just hired their beefiest friends from high school to protect them, nowadays, cybersecurity and physical safety have meshed into a more complicated job for bodyguards.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2022
Don’t look now, but the USB-C connector is evolving under your nose — soon, it’ll carry 240W of electricity, more than double its previous limit and enough to power all but the beefiest laptops.
From The Verge ● Aug. 2, 2022
When we reached the beach, they told me to put my arms at my sides, and the beefiest guy grabbed two rolls of duct tape from the sand.
From "Looking for Alaska" by John Green
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.
