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
-
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; see 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.
Wall Street is glomming on to yet another acronym inspired in part by Mexican cuisine.
From MarketWatch • May 9, 2026
He also explores yuppies’ attraction to marathons, nouvelle cuisine and Gary Hart, who ran a pair of lawyer-driven, technocratic campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 1980s.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 8, 2026
The event will include soccer zones for the whole family, beer gardens, and international cuisine from more than 40 restaurants and specialty market shops.
From Los Angeles Times • May 5, 2026
Our members are passionate about our regional cuisine; they’ve even had meetups and social functions.”
From Salon • May 3, 2026
He wanted the Master and his protege to be special guests of his tonight, and hoped the house cuisine would be to our taste.
From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee
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.
