coffee

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English[edit]

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roasted coffee beans
coffee (beverage)

Etymology[edit]

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[edit]

Noun[edit]

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, (please specify |partition=1, 2, or 3):
      , II.5.1.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 (Project Gutenberg; EBook #14852), New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, published 1 February 2005 (Project Gutenberg version), 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. A tropical plant of the genus Coffea.
  5. (Discuss(+) this sense) A pale brown colour, like that of milk coffee.
    coffee colour:  
  6. The end of a meal, when coffee is served.
    He did not stay for coffee.

Synonyms[edit]

Translations[edit]

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[edit]

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[edit]

Verb[edit]

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.

Derived terms[edit]

Terms derived from the noun or adjective coffee

See also[edit]

Further reading[edit]

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