soup kitchen
Americannoun
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soup kitchens
plural
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a place where food, usually soup, is served at little or no charge to people experiencing food insecurity.
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Military Slang. (in World War I) a mobile kitchen.
noun
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a place or mobile stall where food and drink, esp soup, is served to destitute people
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military a mobile kitchen
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of soup kitchen
First recorded in 1850–55
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.
Daytime activities included volunteering at a soup kitchen, handing out food to families in Parque Maceo and dropping off N95 masks and meds at the towering Hospital Hermanos Ameijeiras.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 3, 2026
Kellond cofounded the organisation in memory of her "wonderful" caring friend Dianne Henry, who ran a church soup kitchen in the city for six years.
From BBC ● Feb. 8, 2026
Nina, a 77-year-old retired engineer, said she could no longer go to the supermarket, getting her lunch and dinner from the soup kitchen instead, as she was not able to afford her own groceries.
From Barron's ● Feb. 6, 2026
Apparently not when he’s working a soup kitchen, according to these legal aces.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 18, 2025
She tried to focus on how much she was helping them, as if this were a charitable deed, purely altruistic: like volunteering at a soup kitchen, or adopting a dog from a shelter.
From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng
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.
