beef

Meaning

Noun

1. The meat from a cow, bull, or other bovine.
2. (slang) The meat from a cow, bull, or other bovine.
3. (slang) The meat from a cow, bull, or other bovine.
4. The meat from a cow, bull, or other bovine.
5. Bovine animals.
6. A bovine (cow or bull) being raised for its meat.
7. (slang) A grudge; dislike (of something or someone); lack of faith or trust (in something or someone); a reason for a dislike or grudge. (often + with)
8. Fibrous calcite or limestone, especially when occurring in a jagged layer between shales in Dorset.

Verb

1. (slang) To complain.
2. (slang) To add weight or strength to.
3. (slang) To fart; break wind.
4. To cry.
5. (slang) To fail or mess up.
6. (slang) To feud or hold a grudge against.
7. (slang) To sing or speak loudly; to cry out.

Adj

1. Being a bovine animal that is being raised for its meat.
2. Producing or known for raising lots of beef.
3. Consisting of or containing beef as an ingredient.
4. (slang) Beefy; powerful; robust.

Synonyms

gripe

bitch

complaint

squawk

kick

complain

cow

🐮

bellyache

beef cattle

boeuf

grouse

crab

🦀

grizzle

meat

🥩

whine

ox

🐂

plaint

grumble

holler

bull

moan

groan

cattle

lamb

🐑

steer

veal

noodge

baby beef

bleat

bovine

carp

cavil

fattening

fuss

game

grievance

grouch

kick up a fuss

kvetch

lament

meaty

nag

niggle

nudge

plaintiveness

roast beef

sarcoid

wailing

whimper

quetch

bibimbap

appeal

Pronounced as (IPA)

/bif/

Etymology

From Middle English beef, bef, beof, borrowed from Anglo-Norman beof, Old French buef, boef (“ox”) (modern French bœuf); from Latin bōs (“ox”), from Proto-Italic *gʷōs, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws. Doublet of cow.
Beef in the sense of “a grudge, argument” was originally an American slang expression:
* attested as a verb “to complain” in 1888: “He'll beef an' kick like a steer an' let on he won't never wear 'em.”— New York World, 13 May;
* attested as a noun “complaint, protest, grievance, sim.” in 1899: “He made a Horrible Beef because he couldn't get Loaf Sugar for his Coffee.”—Fables in Slang (1900) by George Ade, page 80.
As to the possible origin of this American usage, it has been suggested that it can be traced back to a British expression for “alarm”, first recorded in 1725: "BEEF 'to alarm, as To cry beef upon us; they have discover'd us, and are in Pursuit of us". The term "beef" in this context would be a Cockney rhyming slang of thief. The continuous use of a similar expression, including its assumed semantic shift to 'complaint' in the United States from the 1880s onwards, needs further clarification though.