Cafe
nounA small, informal restaurant that serves coffee, light meals, and snacks.
How to spell cafe
4 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce cafe
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does cafe mean?
- nounA small, informal restaurant that serves coffee, light meals, and snacks.
Cafe in a sentence
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They met at a quiet cafe near the station for breakfast.
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The corner cafe sells sandwiches and freshly brewed coffee.
Where does cafe come from?
Language of origin: French
The word arrived in English in the early 1800s straight from the French café, which simply means 'coffee' and, by extension, the establishment where coffee is served. French itself had taken the word from the Italian caffè, and Italian in turn borrowed it from the Turkish kahve, which traces back to the Arabic qahwa, an old word for the drink. So the spelling carries a long journey across Europe, from Arabic through Turkish, Italian, and finally French. In its original French form the word wears an acute accent (café), and that accent is the source of the spelling trouble: written plainly as 'cafe' it looks as though the final 'e' should be silent, yet the word is still pronounced with a clear 'ay' ending. The same Arabic root also gave us the word 'coffee' itself, which is why the two look and sound related.
How the word is built
- cafe (whole word, borrowed unchanged from French café meaning coffee, then the place that serves it)
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