Kitchenhand

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who assists in food preparation and kitchen tasks
2. An individual employed in a kitchen to support chefs and manage cooking activities
3. Someone responsible for various duties in a kitchen, including cleaning and food handling

Etymology: "Kitchenhand" is a plain compound of "kitchen" and "hand", with nothing hidden in its making. "Kitchen" comes from Old English "cycene," an early borrowing from Latin "coquina," meaning a cookhouse or kitchen, and "hand" is one of the oldest words in English, meaning the human hand and, by extension, a person who does work. Put together, a kitchenhand is literally someone who works with their hands in the kitchen. The compound follows a long English pattern in which "hand" denotes a worker, as in deckhand, farmhand and stablehand, where the term names a person by the place where their labour is done. The word is most common in Britain, Australia and New Zealand, where it names the entry-level worker who washes up, prepares vegetables and keeps the kitchen running for chefs.

Synonyms: kitchen assistant, cook's helper