Sous-chef

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The chef underneath the head chef in the chef's hierarchy.

Synonyms

All synonyms
chef de partiesubchefsubcookunderchefundercook

Example

More examples

"William is currently working as a sous-chef in a fine-dining restaurant."

Etymology

From French sous-chef. Compare Italian sotto capo, which was calqued into English as underboss. Perhaps there was ultimately an unattested term *subcaput in Late Latin, with a variant *subciput.

More for "sous-chef"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.