Etymology

The English word coffee first came to be used in the early- to mid-1600s, but early forms of the word date to the last decade of the 1500s. It comes from the Italian caffè. This, in turn, was borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish kahveh, and the Arabic qahwa collectively. The origin of the Arabic term is uncertain; it is either derived from the name of the Kaffa region in western Ethiopia, where coffee was cultivated, or by a truncation of qahwat al-b?nn, meaning "wine of the bean" in Arabic. In Eritrea, "b?nn" (also meaning "wine of the bean" in Tigrinya) is used. The Amharic and Afan Oromo name for coffee is bunna.