cafeteria

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish cafetería (“coffee shop, retail coffee store”),^[2][3][4][5] a word of Mexican and Latin American Spanish.^[6][5][7][8] Barnhart and Etymonline analyse it as café (“coffee”) with the suffix -tería (“place where something is done, usually as a business”);^[5][6] Hoad derives it from cafetero (“maker or seller of coffee”),^[9] and Dictionary.com and Wiktionary from cafetera (“coffee maker”), from French cafetière, with the t apparently on the model of French words such as bouquetière (“flower seller”).^[10][11] Spanish café came through Italian caffè or French café,^[3][5] ultimately from Ottoman Turkish قهوه (kahve, “coffee”).^[3][11] It is related to coffee and cafe.^[3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A coffee house: 1839, in John Lloyd Stephens's account of his travels in the Russian and Turkish empires.^[2][6][5]

Semantic evolution

By the 1890s the word had shifted in American English to a self-service restaurant,^[6][4] a sense whose first known use MWU dates to 1894.^[4] Etymonline says that such places are found from 1885, and that they first became established in Chicago in the early 1890s, run by social and philanthropic bodies such as the YWCA to give working women fast, cheap meals;^[6] factories began to add them in 1915, and schools and colleges followed.^[6] The ending was popularly taken to mean "help yourself", and it formed new words in that sense from about 1923.^[6] From 1917 cafeteria was used, chiefly in the United States, for any system that lets people choose from a range of options, especially of employee benefits,^[2][4] and since 1926 for a court where a minor offender may pay a fixed fine without trial.^[2] Since 1984 cafeteria Catholic and similar phrases have disparaged people who accept only the parts of a doctrine they like.^[2] In American slang it has also meant the mouth (1938).^[12]

Timeline

• 1839 – a coffee house.^[2][6]
• 1894 – a self-service restaurant.^[4]
• 1908 – adjective, offering a choice of options.^[4]
• 1917 – a system of choosing among options, especially employee benefits.^[2]
• 1926 – modifier, a court where a minor fine can be paid without trial.^[2]
• 1938 – slang, the mouth.^[12]
• 1984 – modifier, adhering to a doctrine only selectively.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A restaurant where customers choose food at a counter and carry it to the tables themselves; a self-service restaurant.^[4][13][2]
2. A room, as in a school or workplace, where meals are served or brought-in lunches can be eaten.^[4]
3. (chiefly US) A system in which a person chooses one or more items from a range of options, especially employee benefits.^[2][4]

Adjective

1. Offering a choice from a range of options: a cafeteria approach to course requirements.^[4][2]
2. (often disparaging) Following a faith or doctrine only selectively: a cafeteria Christian.^[2]

Word family

• cafeteria-style
• cafeteria plan

Related words

• caff
• cafe
• cafetorium
• washeteria
• coffee
• cafetière

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins