Etymologically
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caffè

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Pronunciation

Forms

caffè m (invariable, diminutive-derogatory caffeùccio (“café”))[1] Early forms include cavèe (1585), cahve (1614) and cafè (1615); caffè is recorded from 1637.[2][3] In Gregorio Leti the coffee house is a cafeo.[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ottoman Turkish قهوه (kahve), from Arabic قَهْوَة (qahwa), which first meant “wine” or a stimulating drink and was used in Yemen for coffee from the end of the 14th century.[2][3][5][1] The word spread in Italy from Venice, the city that traded with the Ottoman Empire, where it is first recorded.[5][2] It spread throughout the world, adapted to each language, as in French café and Spanish café.[3]

The sense “coffee house” is a calque of the French word, which had this meaning by 1694.[2][6] Eighteenth-century Italian also had a longer phrase, “coffee shop”, which purists of the 19th century preferred, but the short form won.[2] The Italian Wiktionary repeats the story that the drink takes its name from the kingdom of Kaffa in Ethiopia, which the other sources do not mention.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first Italian description of coffee is in a report of 1585 to the Venetian Senate by the ambassador Gianfrancesco Morosini, who saw the Turks drink in public “a black water, as hot as they can bear, drawn from a seed they call cavèe” (un'acqua negra bollente quanto possono sofferire, che si cava d'una semente che chiaman cavèe).[2][8]

Semantic evolution

In the 17th century the word named the plant, its seed and the drink: Francesco Redi wrote of the drink in 1666 and asked a correspondent in Livorno which plant produced the beans.[2][9] The first record of the sense “coffee house” is from 1696.[2] In Venice a bottega da acque of 1713 later became the Caffè di Spadaria.[4] Many derivatives were modelled on French: caffeina and caffettiere follow caféine and cafetier, and caffè concerto follows café-concert.[2][3]

Modern Italian has a long series of names for kinds of coffee, such as caffè espresso, caffè macchiato, caffè corretto and caffè ristretto, and uses the word as an adjective for a dark brown colour.[10][11] English uses caffè for Italian-style coffee, and Wiktionary lists the Italian word as the source of words for coffee in several languages, among them French, Spanish and Dutch.[1] DIFIT marks the link with French as doubtful: the TLF derives French café (1610) from Turkish or Venetian.[12]

Timeline

  • 1585 – Gianfrancesco Morosini describes the drink and its seed, cavèe.[2][10]
  • 1614 – The form cahve is recorded.[3]
  • 1615 – Cafè is recorded in Venice.[3][5]
  • 1637 – The form caffè is first recorded.[3]
  • 1666 – Francesco Redi writes of the drink.[2][12]
  • 1696 – First record of the sense “coffee house”.[2][12]
  • 1711 – Caffettiera “coffee pot” appears in Lorenzo Magalotti.[2]
  • 1754 – Caffetteria is recorded.[2]
  • 1832 – Caffellatte is first recorded.[3]
  • 1865 – Caffeina appears in the Tommaseo–Bellini dictionary.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (botany) The coffee plant (Coffea arabica), an evergreen shrub of the madder family, native to Africa, with white flowers and red berries.[10][6][13]
  2. The seeds of this plant, raw, roasted or ground: Compro mezzo chilo di caffè macinato.[10][14]
  3. The dark, aromatic drink made from the roasted, ground seeds, and a cup of it: Ci vediamo dopo per un caffè?[10][6][11]
  4. A similar drink made from substitutes, as in caffè d'orzo (barley coffee).[10][13]
  5. A café, a public place serving coffee and other drinks.[10][14][13]
  6. A dark golden brown colour.[10]

Adjective

  1. Of the colour of roasted coffee, after its noun: una borsa caffè.[10][14][13]

Word family

  • caffeina
  • caffellatte
  • caffetteria
  • caffettiera
  • caffettiere
  • caffeario
  • caffeicolo
  • caffeismo
  • decaffeinare
  • ammazzacaffè
  • French café

Usage notes

The word is invariable: un caffè, tre caffè.[10][14] Discorsi da caffè are idle, superficial talk.[10][13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  4. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 201
  5. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 660
  6. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  7. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
  8. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  9. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2, 499
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  11. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  12. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  13. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  14. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse