coffee

English
roasted coffee beans
coffee (beverage)

Etymology

From Dutch koffie (“coffee”) [from 1582], from Italian caffè (“coffee”), from Ottoman Turkish قهوه‎ (kahve, “coffee”), from Arabic قَهْوَة‎ (qahwa, “coffee, a brew”). The Arabic word originally referred to wine, a drink which was traditionally mixed and served hot in a similar manner. In Arabic "to brew" utilizes the same trilateral root as wine and intoxicant; see خ م ر‎ (ḵ-m-r) to cover over, presumably with hot water. Other sources instead claim it traces back to the name of the Kaffa region of Ethiopia, which is an Omotic word.

Pronunciation
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈkɒ.fi/
  • (Conservative RP, dated) IPA(key): /ˈkɔː.fɪ/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˈkɔ.fi/
  • (cot–caught merger, Canada) IPA(key): /ˈkɑ.fi/
  • Audio(file)
  • Homophone: coughy (some accents)
  • Rhymes: -ɒfi, -ɔːfi
  • Audio (UK)(file)
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Hyphenation: cof‧fee

Noun

coffee (countable and uncountable, plural coffees)

  1. (uncountable) A beverage made by infusing the beans of the coffee plant in hot water.
    • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624, OCLC 54573970, partition II, section 5, member 1, subsection v:
      The Turks have a drink called coffa (for they use no wine), so named of a berry as black as soot, and as bitter […], which they sip still of, and sup as warm as they can suffer […].
    • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter IV, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326:
      "He was here," observed Drina composedly, "and father was angry with him." ¶ "What?" exclaimed Eileen. "When?" ¶ "This morning, before father went downtown." ¶ Both Selwyn and Lansing cut in coolly, dismissing the matter with a careless word or two; and coffee was served—cambric tea in Drina's case.
    • 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:
      […] a new study of how Starbucks has largely avoided paying tax in Britain […] shows that current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate […] “stateless income”: […]. In Starbucks’s case, the firm has in effect turned the process of making an expensive cup of coffee into intellectual property.
  2. (countable) A serving of this beverage.
    • 2008, Agnes Poirier, The Guardian, 12 April:
      As I sip a coffee at Brasserie Balzar, two well-known intellectuals, one publisher and a Sorbonne professor were discussing Sarkozy's future: "He won't finish his mandate" says one.
  3. The seeds of the plant used to make coffee, misnamed ‘beans’ due to their shape.
  4. The powder made by roasting and grinding the seeds.
  5. A tropical plant of the genus Coffea.
  6. A pale brown colour, like that of milk coffee.
    coffee colour:  
  7. The end of a meal, when coffee is served.
    He did not stay for coffee.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

Adjective

coffee (not comparable)

  1. Of a pale brown colour, like that of milk coffee.
  2. Of a table: a small, low table suitable for people in lounge seating to put coffee cups on

Translations

Verb

coffee (third-person singular simple present coffees, present participle coffeeing, simple past and past participle coffeed)

  1. (intransitive) To drink coffee.
    • 1839, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, The Clockmaker
      I rushed into my cabin, coffeed, wined, and went to bed sobbing.
    • 2010, Patrick Day, Too Late in the Afternoon: One Man's Triumph Over Depression
      It was exactly 11 a.m. We had been coffeeing for one hour, and our coffee cups were empty.

Descendants

See also

Further reading
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