Library / English Dictionary

BEEF

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected form: beeves   

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cattle that are reared for their meat

Synonyms:

beef; beef cattle

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("beef" is a kind of...):

Bos taurus; cattle; cows; kine; oxen (domesticated bovine animals as a group regardless of sex or age)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "beef"):

longhorn; Texas longhorn (long-horned beef cattle formerly common in southwestern United States)

Santa Gertrudis (Brahman and shorthorn crossbreed of red cattle; hardy in hot regions)

Aberdeen Angus; Angus; black Angus (black hornless breed from Scotland)

Charolais (large white or cream-colored breed from France)

Durham; shorthorn (English breed of short-horned cattle)

Galloway (breed of hardy black chiefly beef cattle native to Scotland)

Hereford; whiteface (hardy English breed of cattle raised extensively in United States)

beefalo; cattalo (hardy breed of cattle resulting from crossing domestic cattle with the American buffalo; yields leaner beef than conventional breeds)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Informal terms for objecting

Example:

I have a gripe about the service here

Synonyms:

beef; bitch; gripe; kick; squawk

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("beef" is a kind of...):

objection (the speech act of objecting)

Derivation:

beef (complain)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Meat from an adult domestic bovine

Synonyms:

beef; boeuf

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("beef" is a kind of...):

meat (the flesh of animals (including fishes and birds and snails) used as food)

Meronyms (parts of "beef"):

cut of beef (cut of meat from beef cattle)

beef loin (cut of meat from a loin of beef)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "beef"):

ground beef; hamburger (beef that has been ground)

bully beef; corn beef; corned beef (beef cured or pickled in brine)

pastrami (highly seasoned cut of smoked beef)

Holonyms ("beef" is a part of...):

Bos taurus; cattle; cows; kine; oxen (domesticated bovine animals as a group regardless of sex or age)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Complain

Example:

What was he hollering about?

Synonyms:

beef; bellyache; bitch; crab; gripe; grouse; holler; squawk

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "beef" is one way to...):

complain; kick; kvetch; plain; quetch; sound off (express complaints, discontent, displeasure, or unhappiness)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP
Somebody ----s that CLAUSE

Derivation:

beef (informal terms for objecting)

Credits

 Context examples: 

CoQ10 is fat-soluble (can dissolve in fats and oils) and is found in fatty fish, beef, soybeans, peanuts, and spinach.

(CoQ10, NCI Dictionary)

There are scant crops and few beeves in the borderland, where a man must reap his grain with sickle in one fist and brown bill in the other.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I can see his face now, with a flush over each craggy cheek-bone when the butcher made him the present of some ribs of beef.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Heterocyclic Amines are formed from cooking meat such as beef, pork, fowl, and fish when amino acids and creatine (found in muscle) react at high temperatures.

(Heterocyclic Amine Carcinogen, NCI Thesaurus)

E. fergusonii can be isolated from the intestinal tract of warm blooded animals and from contaminated beef.

(Escherichia fergusonii, NCI Thesaurus)

Domesticated ungulates that are raised for beef, dairy products, and leather, and used for labor.

(Cow, NCI Thesaurus)

There is concern that people can get a variant of CJD from eating beef from an infected animal, but there is no direct proof to support this.

(Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, NIH: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke)

Human infection is commonly caused by the consumption of undercooked ground beef or unpasteurized milk or juice or exposure to contaminated lakes, pools or drinking water.

(Escherichia coli strain O157:H7, NCI Thesaurus)

When her hands were not hard from the endless housework, they were swollen and red like boiled beef, what of the washing.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

My contribution was canned beef fried with crumbled sea-biscuit and water.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)