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Origin and history of cafe

cafe(n.)

"coffee-house, restaurant," 1802, from French café "coffee, coffeehouse," from Italian caffe "coffee" (see coffee).

The beverage was introduced in Venice by 1615 and in France by 1650s by merchants and travelers who had been to Turkey and Egypt. The first public European café might have been one opened in Marseilles in 1660. Cafe society "people who frequent fashionable dining spots, night-clubs, etc." is from 1922.

also from 1802

Entries linking to cafe

coffee(n.)

"drink made from the ground and roasted seeds of a tree originally native to Arabia and Abyssinia," c. 1600, from Dutch koffie, from Turkish kahveh, from Arabic qahwah "coffee," which Arab etymologists connected with a word meaning "wine," but it is perhaps rather from the Kaffa region of Ethiopia, a home of the plant (coffee in Kaffa is called būno, which itself was borrowed into Arabic as bunn "raw coffee").

The early forms of the word in English indicate a derivation from Arabic or Turkish: chaoua (1598), cahve, kahui, etc. French café, German Kaffe are via Italian caffè.

The first coffee-house in Mecca dates to the 1510s; the beverage was in Turkey by the 1530s. It appeared in Europe c. 1515-1519 and was introduced to England by 1650. By 1675 the country had more than 3,000 coffee houses and coffee had replaced beer as a breakfast drink, but its use there declined 18c. with the introduction of cheaper tea. In the American colonies, however, the tax on tea kept coffee popular.

Meaning "a light meal at which coffee is served" is from 1774. As a shade or color resembling coffee, 1815. Coffee-bean is from 1680s. Coffee-mill is from 1690s; coffee-spoon is from 1703; coffee-pot is from 1705; coffee-cup is from 1762. Coffee-shop is from 1838. Coffee-cake is from 1850 as "cake in which coffee is an ingredient." Coffee break attested from 1952, at first often in glossy magazine advertisements by the Pan-American Coffee Bureau.

Did you drink a cup of coffee on company time this morning? Chances are that you did—for the midmorning coffee break is rapidly becoming a standard fixture in American offices and factories. [The Kiplinger Magazine, March 1952]

cybercafe(n.)

"cafe that offers Internet access on its computers," or (later) via Wi-Fi on customers' computers," 1994, from cyber- + cafe.

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Trends of cafe

adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

More to explore

cafeteria

1839, "cafe," American English, from Mexican Spanish cafeteria "coffee store," from café "coffee" (see coffee) + Spanish...

cola

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nada

First in Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," set in a Spanish cafe, in which the word figures largely: What did he...

coffee-house

also coffeehouse, "house of entertainment where guests are supplied with coffee and other refreshments," 1610s, from coffee + house (n.). In late 17c. London they were important political centers, serving as clubs did for a later generation; each sect and party had a chosen one o

pull-up

1837, "act of bringing a horse or vehicle to a sudden stop," from the verbal phrase; see pull (v.) + up (adv.). To pull up is attested by early 14c. as "lift (someone or something)," late 14c. as "uproot." By 1887 as "a place for pulling up a vehicle." The noun, as a type of hori

estaminet

1814, from French, "a café in which smoking is allowed" (17c.), of unknown origin; some suggest a connection to French estamine, a type of open woolen fabric used for making sieves, etc., from Latin stamineus "made of thread." Or [Watkins] from Walloon stamen "post to which a cow

restaurant

"an eating-house, establishment where meals may be bought and eaten," 1821, from French restaurant "a restaurant," originally "food that restores," noun use of present participle of restaurer "to restore or refresh," from Old French restorer (see restore). In 1765 a man by the n

shop

c. 1300, "booth or shed for trade or work," perhaps from Old English scoppa, a rare word of uncertain meaning, apparently related to scypen "cowshed," from Proto-Germanic *skoppan "small additional structure" (source also of Old High German scopf "building without walls, porch,"

bar

late 12c., "stake or rod of iron used to fasten a door or gate," from Old French barre "beam, bar, gate, barrier" (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *barra "bar, barrier," which some suggest is from Gaulish *barros "the bushy end" [Gamillscheg, etc.], but OED regards this as "discredited"

condescend

mid-14c., of God, a king., etc., "make gracious allowance" for human frailty, etc.; late 14c., "yield deferentially," from Old French condescendere (14c.) "to agree, consent, give in, yield, come down from one's rights or claims," and directly from Late Latin condescendere "to le

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