Chinese character 廚

It names a kitchen or, by extension, the work or person associated with one. In everyday Chinese compounds, 廚房 names the room where food is prepared, and 廚師 names a cook or chef. The surrounding word tells you which sense is intended.

The oldest forms in the historical record appear in bronze inscriptions: some combine 肉 (the “meat” component) with 朱, while another uses 朱 alone for a palace kitchen. Shuowen, an early Chinese dictionary, defines 廚 as a cooking house. A quotation from the Warring States period of Chinese history uses 廚人 for the person preparing food. Older texts also preserve cupboard and bed-canopy senses; modern compounds center on kitchens and cooks.

Is 廚 related to 庖?

Yes: 庖廚 is a recorded word for a kitchen. The compound appears in a dictionary entry and in a Mencius passage, an early Chinese philosophical text, about keeping away from the kitchen. 庖 is another older kitchen word. 爨 is a separate character for cooking or a stove; 爨室 means a cooking room, but 爨 is not a variant of 廚.

Why do I see 廚 instead of 厨?

廚 is traditional; 厨 is its simplified counterpart. They write the same Chinese word. 廚 is usual in traditional-Chinese writing, including Taiwan and Hong Kong, while 厨 belongs to simplified-Chinese writing; choosing one does not make the word more formal or change its basic meaning.

Fonts may draw the strokes differently, but 廚 remains the same text character. The difference between 廚 and 厨 comes from the writing form, not a font rendering.