The Chef

A chef is a person who cooks professionally for other people. (The French word comes from Latin caput and is cognate with English "chief".)

The word "chef" is borrowed (and shortened) from the French term chef de cuisine (French pronunciation: [ʃɛf.də.kɥi.zin]), the director or head of a kitchen. In English, the title "chef" in the culinary profession originated in the haute cuisine of the 19th century. Today it is often used to refer to any professional cook, regardless of rank, though in most classically defined kitchens, it refers to the head chef; others, in North American parlance, are "cooks".