COFFEE

The English word "coffee" first came into use in the early to mid 1600s, but early forms date back to the last decade of the 1500s. The English term stems from the Italian caffè and the French, Portuguese and Spanish café. These words were borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish kahveh, a derivation of the Arabic qahhwa.

The origin of the Arabic qahwa (قهوة), is uncertain. It is either derived from the name of the Kaffa region in southern Ethiopia, where coffee was cultivated, or by a truncation of qahwat al-būnn, meaning "wine of the bean" in Arabic.