cafea

Forms

cafea f (plural cafele)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ottoman Turkish قهوه (kahve, “coffee”), from Arabic قَهْوَة (qahwa), a word Ciorănescu dates before the 17th century.^[2][3][1][4] DELR adds that the Turkish word came from Arabic through Persian.^[3] DEX, MDA2 and the DILF also name Modern Greek καφές (kafés) and French café among the sources, and Tiktin Italian caffè.^[5][6][7][8] Ciorănescu explains that in modern times the word was influenced by the Western forms, from which the neologisms cafeină and cafetieră came.^[2]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian café and Megleno-Romanian café.^[2] The Balkan languages have the same Turkish word: Albanian kafe, Bulgarian кафе (kafe).^[2][4] The regional ⟨cafă⟩ of the Banat and Transylvania is from Serbo-Croatian kafa.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to 1694, and Tiktin to about 1694, in a document of the time; the word meant the seed of the coffee tree and the drink made from it.^[3][8] DELR records cafegi-bașa, the head of the court's coffee servants, from 1693.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The old vocabulary shows the drink's place at the princely courts: cafegiu, the servant who made and served coffee at court (c. 1710), cahvegidină, the woman serving coffee at the princess's court (1766), and cafenea “coffee house” (1770), from Turkish kahvehane.^[3][2] The 18th century wrote it cahve.^[8]

Phrases name ways of making it: cafea turcească “Turkish coffee” and cafea cu lapte “coffee with milk”;^[8] Tiktin also records cafea rusească “Russian coffee” as a joke name for brandy.^[8] Recent coinages include cafea espresso and cafea filtru.^[5][9]

Timeline

• 1693 – cafegi-bașa “head of the coffee servants”.^[3]
• c. 1694 – cafea, the first record.^[3][8]
• c. 1710 – cafegiu “court coffee servant”.^[3]
• 1770 – cafenea “coffee house”.^[3]
• 1790 – cafeniu “coffee-coloured” and the diminutive cafeluță.^[3]
• 1871 – cafeină “caffeine”, from French.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The seed of the coffee tree, used, usually ground, as food.^[5][6][1]
2. The drink made from roasted and ground coffee or from a substitute; a cup of it: am băut două cafele “I drank two coffees”.^[5][1]
3. (also arbore de cafea) The coffee tree, a tropical shrub with white scented flowers and evergreen leaves.^[6][1]

Word family

• cafeluță
• cafeniu
• cafeli

Related words

• cafenea
• cafegiu
• cafeină

Usage notes

Old and regional variants include cahve and cahvea, the Banat cafă and the Transylvanian cafei and cavei, the last two from Transylvanian Saxon and Hungarian.^[6][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. cafea
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. cafea
4. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1900), Influența orientală asupra limbei și culturei române, vol. I: Introducerea; vol. II.1: Vorbele populare; vol. II.2: Vorbele istorice, literare, Indice, București: Socec, p. II.1, 71
5. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 132
6. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 274
7. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria, p. s.v. cafea
8. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. cafea
9. ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. cafea