Dictionary

beefy en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈbiːfi/

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws Proto-Italic *gʷōs Osco-Umbrianbor.? Latin bovem Anglo-Norman beofbor. Middle English bef English beef Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y English -y English beefy From beef + -y.

Meanings

1. Similar to, or tasting like beef.
2. Containing beef.
   • The Chicken Big Mac is similar to its beefy sibling; however, it replaces the two burgers with two tempura chicken patties. 2024 October 3, Jordan Valinsky, “McDonald’s is finally selling the Chicken Big Mac in the US”, in CNN:
3. (informal) Strong or muscular.
   • A beefy guy who enjoyed posting photos of himself in military gear, Smith had a love of explosives — he urged his fellow Terrorgrammers to bomb electric power stations, cell towers and natural gas lines — and contempt for federal law enforcement agents. 2025 March 15, A.C. Thompson, James Bandler, “The Rise and Fall of Terrorgram: Inside a Global Online Hate Network”, in ProPublica:
   • The jaw bone in particular “looks more like that of H. erectus … than the beefier jaws of more primitive hominins such as H. habilis,” according to science journal Nature. 2016 June 9, James Griffiths, “This is how the ‘Hobbits’ of Indonesia became so small”, in CNN:
   • The barman was a big, beefy guy with his sleeves rolled up and tattoos on his arms.
   • Soon the Latino warrior had bared his beefy body. His bullet packed bandolier still draped over one shoulder served to emphasize the nakedness of the torso, as did the boots and the pants that were puddled about his ankles. 1991, Etienne, “In Enemy Hands”, in Drummer, number 151, page 32:
4. Large; overweight; fat.
   • Grumping indignantly, he said, "By ginger, a nice blanky thing to lose a good job and risk being dam' near killed by Peabody for a beefy married woman. I tell you she weighs over fifteen stone, absolutely." 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 82:
5. (informal) Sturdy; robust.
   • “The beefiest part of Saturday evening’s meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi may well have been the local sirloin served for dinner,” Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, wrote to clients on Monday. 2018 December 3, Matt Egan, “Dow rises 288 points on US-China trade ceasefire”, in CNN:
   • The software slows down even a beefy computer.

Forms

Deriveds

beefily · beefiness · unbeefy

Translations (9)

it carnoso (similar to beef) · de fleischig (similar to beef) · es cárnico (containing beef) · de fleischig (containing beef) · ro cărnos (similar to beef) · fi naudanlihapitoinen (containing beef) · es carnudo (similar to beef) · fi lihaisa (similar to beef) · es carnoso (similar to beef)