قهوة

Derived by medieval philologists from the root ق ه ي (q h y), relating to satiety, with the meaning of "wine", explained by Ibn Manẓūr that "it was named thus since it surfeits the drinker of it and takes away his desire". The "coffee" sense is ultimately of disputed origin. According to Watkins, the original meaning could have been "dark stuff," related to Hebrew כָּהָה (“dull, weak, dim”), Aramaic ܩܗܐ (qəhā, “to be(come) blunt, to be(come) dull”), Arabic قَهِيَ (qahiya, “to be/become weak, lack hunger”).^[1]

Originally meaning a "brew", the word referred to mulled wine, and later to coffee, possibly since intoxicants were traditionally mixed and served hot in a similar manner to coffee, featuring many overlapping spices and the hospitality etiquette of modern-day Arab coffee culture. Culturally other words were re-purposed from wine to coffee with the advent of the traditionalist Muslim prohibition on intoxication. Other synonyms for "to brew" utilize the same trilateral roots as wine and intoxicants; see خ م ر (ḵ m r), meaning to cover over, presumably with hot water, to let sit, to steep, to let ferment or to give suitable time for food to be prepared for use.

Alternatively, some sources trace the term back to the Omotic Kaffa, the name of the region in Ethiopia where coffee was first grown; however, the word used to mean wine in earlier Arabic, more than half a millennium before this Kingdom existed, which makes any associations dubious.

• IPA^(key): /qah.wa/
  • (Egypt) IPA^(key): /ʔah.wa/
  • (Hijazi, Gulf) IPA^(key): /ɡah.wa/
  • (Najdi) IPA^(key): /ɡha.wa/
  • (Levantine) IPA^(key): /ʔahwɛ/
  • (Hebron cities and villages) IPA^(key): /ɡahwɛ/
  • (Palestinian Fellahi) IPA^(key): /kahwɛ/
  • (Morocco) IPA^(key): /qah.wa/

قَهْوَة • (qahwa) f (plural قَهَوَات (qahawāt) or قَهَاوٍ (qahāwin)) (usually uncountable)

1. coffee (the drink)
2. (colloquial) coffee shop, café
3. (obsolete) wine
   • c. 800, إبراهيم بن المهدي, فما مزه قهوة قرقف شمولا تروق براووقها:

     فما مزه قهوة قرقف شمولا تروق براووقها

     What he slurps of wine from a bowl, it wholly gets strained by its sifter.

4. (obsolete) any psychotropic brew (e.g. qāt, as well as wine or coffee)

• مَقْهًى m (maqhan)

• أَقْهَى (ʔaqhā)

• بُنّ m (bunn)
• شَاي m (šāy)
• نَبِيذ m (nabīḏ)

• De Sacy, Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de (1826) Chrestomathie arabe, ou, extraits de divers écrivains arabes, tant en prose qu'en vers, avec une traduction française et des notes, à l'usage des élèves de l'École royale et spéciale des langues orientales vivantes, volume 1, page 462 Nr. 40
• Freytag, Georg (1835) “قهوة”, in Lexicon arabico-latinum praesertim ex Djeuharii Firuzabadiique et aliorum Arabum operibus adhibitis Golii quoque et aliorum libris confectum‎^[1] (in Latin), volume 3, Halle: C. A. Schwetschke, page 511
• Kazimirski, Albin de Biberstein (1860) “قهوة”, in Dictionnaire arabe-français contenant toutes les racines de la langue arabe, leurs dérivés, tant dans l’idiome vulgaire que dans l’idiome littéral, ainsi que les dialectes d’Alger et de Maroc‎^[2] (in French), volume 2, Paris: Maisonneuve et C^ie, page 829
• Wehr, Hans (1979) “قهوة”, in J. Milton Cowan, editor, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th edition, Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, →ISBN, pages 929–930

• “coffee”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.

• قهوه (alternative spelling)

Inherited from Arabic قَهْوَة (qahwa).

• IPA^(key): /ah.wa/, [ˈ(ʔ)æhwɜ]

قهوة • (ʔahwa) f (plural قهاوي (ahāwi))

1. (uncountable) coffee
2. (countable) a traditional Arabic coffeehouse, as opposed to a western-style كافيه (kafē, “café”)

• گهوة (gahwa)

From Arabic قَهْوَة (qahwa).

• (Kuwait) IPA^(key): /ˈɡəh.wə/
• (Ghawa syndrome) IPA^(key): /ˈɡha.wa/

قهوة • (gahwa) f (plural قهاوي (gahāwi))

1. coffeehouse (a traditional social gathering places where men gather)
2. (rare) café

   Synonym: كافيه (kafē)

قهوة • (gahwa) f (plural قهوات (gahwāt))

1. coffee

From Arabic قَهْوَة (qahwa).

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡah.wa/

قهوة • (gahwa) f (plural قهوات (gahwāt) or قهاوي (gahāwi))

1. coffee
2. (rare) coffee shop, café

   Synonym: مقهى (magha)

• بُن m (bunn, “coffee beans”)

From Arabic قَهْوَة (qahwa).

• IPA^(key): /qah.wa/

• Audio:

  (file)

قهوة • (qahwa) f (plural قهوات (qahwāt))

1. coffee

قهوة • (qahwa) f (plural قهاوي (qhāwi))

1. coffee shop, café

From Arabic قَهْوَة (qahwa).

• IPA^(key): /ʔah.we/, [ˈʔah.we]
• IPA^(key): /ʔah.wa/, [ˈʔah.wa]

• Audio (Bethlehem):

  (file)

قهوة • (ʔahwe) f (plural قهاوي (ʔahāwi))

1. coffee
2. café, coffee shop, coffeehouse

   Synonym: مقهى (maʔha)

• بن (binn, “coffee beans”)
• قهوة مرة (ʔahwe murra, “unsweetened coffee”, literally “bitter coffee”)
• قهوة سادة (ʔahwe sāda, “coffee without milk and sugar”, literally “plain coffee”)