cuisine
Americannoun
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a style or quality of cooking; cookery.
Italian cuisine; This restaurant has an excellent cuisine.
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Archaic. the kitchen or culinary department of a house, hotel, etc.
noun
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a style or manner of cooking
French cuisine
-
the food prepared by a restaurant, household, etc
Etymology
Origin of cuisine
1475–85; < French: literally, kitchen < Vulgar Latin *cocīna, for Latin coquīna; kitchen
Explanation
Cuisine is a type of food that is cooked in a specific way based on a culture's ingredients, region, and traditions. If you're craving cannoli, a visit to Chinatown doesn't make much sense, since cheese is more characteristic of Italian cuisine. Boiling an egg or flipping burgers on the grill is cooking. But if you want to create cuisine, you need to understand how to prepare the culinary specialties of a particular country or culture. To make Italian cuisine, for example, you'll need to chop garlic, roll out pasta dough, and simmer pots of tomato sauce. When the word "fine" is attached to cuisine, it describes the food at a fancy restaurant that will part you with a good portion of your money.
Vocabulary lists containing cuisine
Eat Your Words
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Passover Vocabulary
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Mardi Gras: Food
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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.
There’s also a family restaurant that’s struggling and could really use the help of a talented would-be chef obsessed with Italian cuisine.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 10, 2026
Deighton also authored a number of historical books about the Second World War and, as a cookery writer, helped to introduce French cuisine to the UK.
From BBC • Mar. 17, 2026
The 76-year-old offers his diners traditional Iranian cuisine like gondi -- chicken dumplings with chickpeas -- and ghormeh sabzi -- a herby meat stew.
From Barron's • Mar. 13, 2026
The cuisine is described as contemporary Indian, though that label hardly captures the range on the menu.
From Salon • Mar. 7, 2026
But you can tell a lot about cultures too, by how they handle pooping, cause it’s the other half of their cuisine.
From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri
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.
