Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) to perform anilingus or cunnilingus.

1934		‘J.M. Hall’ Anecdota Americana II 109: L stands for Lapper, / Who reaps as he sows / [...] / He cleans up the kitchen. And thinks that it’s grand.
1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 8: clean up the kitchen (v.): The practice of cunnilinctus.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 172: to lick or suck anus [...] clean up the kitchen.
1999		D. Lypchuk ‘A dirty little story’ in eye mag. 8 July 🌐 After he cleaned up the kitchen, he admired her crumpet and had some sugar bowl pie. Then he stuck his bald-headed hermit into her artichoke again.

(US short-order) a portion of roast beef hash.

1923

El Paso Herald (TX) 31 Jan. 8/2: ‘Sweep the kitchen’ means roast beef hash.

see under bitch n.¹

1. (US, also kitchen queen) a cook or washer-up.

1875		Leavenworth Times (KS) 21 Oct. 2/3: One of the ‘kitchen mechanics‘ deferred going.
1877		Dodge City Times 11 Aug. 8/1: The pan-handle strikers, alias biscuit-tossers alias kitchen mechanics [...] have as yet not succeeded in getting up successful strikes.
1887		Lantern (N.O.) 23 July 2: A dirty looking kitchen mechanic called Maggie Howard.
1897		Hawaiian Gaz. 28 Dec. 2/3: He was employed as a cook [...]He became a kitchen mechanic by profession.
1902		Tom Logan In Dahomey [song title] I’ll Take a Kitchen Mechanic for Mine.
1904		‘Hugh McHugh’ I’m from Missouri 19: Isn’t that a peach of a handle for a kitchen queen.
1912		Day Book (Chicago) 26 Jan. 11/1: She fires her kitchen mechanic and starts doing the work herself.
1922		Excelsior Quartette [song title] Kitchen Mechanic Blues.
1939		Lillie Mae Kirkham ‘He’s Just My Size’ 🎵 He’s a kitchen mechanic, and he makes my biscuits rise.
1942		Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1004: Best you can do is to confidence some kitchen-mechanic out of a dime or two.
1958		Hughes & Bontemps Book of Negro Folklore 381: I’m jes a workin’ girl, po’ workin’ girl, kitchen mechanic is what dey say.
1998		Internet Express 2 Mar. 🌐 Stressing there was nothing wrong with that occupation, Humphrey described his wife, Helen, as ‘a kitchen mechanic par excellence’.

2. (US black) a prostitute.

1925		S. Miller ‘Kitchen Mechanic Blues’ lyrics] Women [...] talk about me, they lies on, calls me out of my name; / All their men come to see me just the same. / I’m just a working gal, poor working gal, ‘kitchen mechanic’ is what they say.
1960		P. Oliver Blues Fell this Morning 124: Thus the prostitute becomes the ‘kitchen mechanic’.

(Aus.) to tell off, to scold.

1873		J.C.F. Johnson Christmas on Carringa 4: He had been getting from Mrs M... what he termed ‘the rounds of the kitchen’, for being such a fool [AND].
1939		J. Campbell Babe is Wise 211: I grabs her rump-tump-timp hard as you like, so she wakes up. An’ does she gimme the rounds of the kitchen! Pitches into me like I dunno w’at.
1966		S J. Baker Aus. Lang. (2nd edn) 427: Reprove (v.), give the rounds of the kitchen to (someone).
1986		R.G. Barrett Godson 178: Les gave poor Peregrine the rounds of the kitchen all the way back to the farm.

(US black) to compete in a game of insults, espewcially when focused on a rival's mother.

2012

(con. 1974) E. Wald Talking ’Bout Your Mama 5: Herbert Foster [...] provided a list that included ‘crackin’ on the kitchen folks,’ ‘going in the kitchen,’ ‘getting down on the crib,’ and ‘ribbin’ but added that most teenagers just called it ‘talkin’ about moms’.

(Ulster) a thrashing.

1997

Share Slanguage.

a kitchen maid.

1619		Rowlands Well met Gossip C3: One that is Kitchin-stuffe to mee, Her stocke is knowen so base.
1631		T. Heywood Faire Maid of West Pt I II i: A pox upon your Iolles, you kitchin-stuffe, Goe scowre your skillets, pots, and dripping pans.
1640		The Wandering Jew 38: A Kitchin stuffe-wench might pick up a living, by following me [...] I eate much.
1664		R. Howard The Committee III i: c.bl. How, Kitchen-stuff-acquaintance! c.car. Yes, Mrs. Day that commanded the Party in the Hackney-Coach was my Father’s Kitchen-maid.
1685		S. Wesley Maggots 127: All the Tripe-women, Kitchin-stuff-wenches, Hogs-feet, Butter-Whores and Scullions.
1838		(con. early 19C) Crim.-Con. Gaz. 22 Dec. 143/3: When George the Fourth was told of it [i.e. an affair], he said, ‘It was very natural that a Cooke be fond of Kitchen stuff, but if he meddles with the Coles, he will get out of the frying pan into the fire’.