soup kitchen
Americannoun
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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
In the Guanabacoa neighborhood, in eastern Havana, workers are busy installing 12 solar panels on the roof of a nursing home run by the Catholic Church that doubles as a soup kitchen.
From Barron's ● Feb. 11, 2026
Apparently not when he’s working a soup kitchen, according to these legal aces.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 18, 2025
You can still volunteer at a local soup kitchen, nursing home, or hospital.
From Salon ● Nov. 26, 2025
They scoffed at her beliefs, they joked about her soup kitchen.
From "The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin
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.
