noun
beef
beef
noun
1
The meat of cattle, used as food.
"We had roast beef for Sunday dinner."
"The recipe calls for ground beef."
2
A complaint, grudge, or ongoing dispute with someone.
"What's your beef with him — did something happen?"
"The two rappers have had a public beef for years."
verb
1
To complain.
"Stop beefing about the schedule and just get it done."
How to Use Beef
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishCattle meat — or, informally, a complaint or ongoing feud with someone.
When to use it
The "grudge/complaint" sense is informal slang, common in everyday speech and hip-hop culture but not used in formal writing.
Common pairings
have a beef with
roast beef
beef up
Word Forms
beefed past tense, beef plural, beefs plural, beeves plural, beefs singular
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Etymology
From Old French buef ("ox"), from Latin bovem, the same root that gives us "bovine." The slang sense meaning "a grudge" is American, first recorded as a verb ("to complain") in the late 1800s.