Kaffee

(obsolete spellings)

• Caffe, Kaffe
• Caffee
• Caffeh, Kaffeh
• Coffe, Koffe
• Coffee, Koffee
• Coffeh, Koffeh

Borrowed from French café in the seventeenth century, while the o-Variants – which fell into disuse with the nineteenth century – are from English coffee.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkafe/ (overall the most common variant)
• IPA^(key): /kaˈfeː/ (Austrian; occasionally elsewhere, but widely perceived as snobbish)
• IPA^(key): /ˈkafə/ (parts of northern and eastern Germany)

• (file)

  IPA^(key): [kʰaˈfeː‿ˈkʰafe]
• (Austria)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: Kaf‧fee
• Rhymes: -afe, -afə, -eː
• Homophone: Café (only according to the Austrian pronunciation of Kaffee)

Kaffee m (genitive Kaffees, plural Kaffees, diminutive Käffchen n or Käfflein n)

1. coffee (beverage made by infusing the beans of the coffee plant in hot water)
2. (regional) afternoon coffee, coffee and cake (afternoon meal in northern and central Germany, particularly on Sundays)

   Wir fahren am Sonntag zum Kaffee zur Oma.

   On Sunday, we go to Grandma's for coffee [and cake].

• (beverage): As with most beverages in German, the plural Kaffees is only used to mean “several kinds of coffee”. Otherwise the singular form is used: Zwei Kaffee, bitte! – “Two coffees, please!”
• (meal): The use for the afternoon meal is still applicable if one prefers other beverages, such as tea. It would not be all too extraordinary to say: Wir trinken meistens Tee zum Kaffee. — (literally) We usually have tea for coffee.

• (meal) Kaffeetrinken, Kaffee und Kuchen

• Käffchen

• “Kaffee” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• Kaffee in Duden online