Translations:History of coffee/5/en

Etymology

The word coffee entered the English language in 1582 via the Dutch koffie, borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish kahve (قهوه), borrowed in turn from the Arabic qahwah (قَهْوَة). Medieval Arab lexicographers traditionally held that the etymology of qahwah meant 'wine', given its distinctly dark color, and derived from the verb qahiya (قَهِيَ), 'to have no appetite'. The word qahwah most likely meant 'dark', referring to the brew or the bean. Semitic languages had the root qhh, "dark color", which became a natural designation for the beverage. There is no evidence that the word qahwah was named after the Ethiopian province of Kaffa (a part of where coffee originates from: Abyssinia), or any significant authority stating the opposite, or that it is traced to the Arabic quwwa ("power"). A different term for 'coffee', widespread in languages of Ethiopia, is buna, bun, būn or buni (depending on the language). Most often the word group has been assumed to originate from Arabic bunn (بن) meaning specifically the coffee bean, but indigenous origin in Cushitic has been proposed as a possibility as well.