kitchen police
- noun
- Jargon
:
policía de cocina
- Serving as kitchen police meant he spent hours washing dishes and peeling potatoes.
Examples
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The new recruits rotated through their kitchen police duties every month.
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After being late, he was put on kitchen police for the rest of the week.
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The kitchen police are responsible for maintaining cleanliness.
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Many kitchen police work hard to prepare meals.
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As part of his punishment for being late, he was assigned to kitchen police where he had to help cook meals.
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While on kitchen police, he learned valuable cooking skills and assisted in keeping the area clean.
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Each week, different soldiers took turns performing kitchen police duties, ensuring everyone contributed to meal preparation.
Synonyms
2
7.2
A person in the military who helps cook and serve food in the kitchen
1
2.5
A person who helps in a restaurant kitchen with preparing food and cleaning
Surface Forms
Morphology
kitchen + police
The constituents give a partial clue: 'kitchen' is clear and 'police' can be understood metaphorically as ‘to enforce or keep order’, so learners might infer a role related to maintaining the kitchen. However, the specific military jargon sense (enlisted personnel assigned to cooking/cleaning, KP) is specialized and not a straightforward compositional reading of literal law-enforcement 'police', so full understanding typically requires prior exposure.
Etymology
Kitchen police comes from the military, where soldiers were sent to the kitchen to police, a word here meaning 'to clean' and tidy up after meals. So, kitchen police means someone assigned to help with cooking and cleaning duties.