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.
And though President Vladimir Putin recently hailed a cooling of inflation amid high interest rates, pensioners in the Saint Petersburg soup kitchen say their situation is still dire.
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
"We'll let the parent know that it's there, and then the child doesn't know that it was from a soup kitchen, because some parents are embarrassed."
From BBC ● Dec. 14, 2025
You can still volunteer at a local soup kitchen, nursing home, or hospital.
From Salon ● Nov. 26, 2025
Theo stood, turned to the man he was about to accuse, and saw the scene in the soup kitchen, saw Otis Amber cooking soup for the dirty, hungry men.
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.
