1904, borrowed from Italian cappuccino, from Viennese German Kapuziner, due to the similarity of the color of the beverage to the monastic habit of dark brown; compare Franziskaner ("Franciscan"), a contemporary coffee drink with more milk and hence a lighter color, more similar to the latter monks’ habits of light brown.
In English attested 1904 as “[small] coffee mixed with milk”, 1933 as “express strong coffee diluted with milk”; in Italian 1905 as “black coffee ‘corrected’ with milk”, and still in 1931 as “black coffee mixed with a little milk”; the modern sense of a coffee drink made with espresso at a bar presumably developed in the 1930s in Italian, and was borrowed into English. The Italian term is of Northern Italian origin, in areas of former or contemporary Austrian rule and influence. The German term Capuzinerkaffee (Capuchin coffee) is attested 1790, referring to a rather different drink (boiled coffee with cream, sugar, spice, and whisked eggs), though by 1848 and into the early 1900s the Kapuziner had come to mean a drink of coffee and milk, with more coffee than milk, by contrast with the Melange, which had more milk than coffee; this usage continues to the present.
The etymology is confusing for a number of reasons. Firstly, the sense of “coffee beverage” originated in German, not in Italian, but the word (in the sense “Capuchin monk”) was loan-translated from Italian into German and then the sense of “coffee beverage” was reborrowed back into Italian.
cappuccino
- (uncountable) An Italian coffee-based beverage made from espresso and milk that has been steamed and/or frothed.
- (countable) A cup of this beverage.
- (uncountable, proscribed) Other similar drinks.
- (uncountable) Capuchin or the color, especially cappuccino brown.
- 1928, The Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan), 1928-09-29:
- English Grey or Cappuccino Brown
- 1928, The Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan), 1928-09-29:
- French: cappuccino
- German: Cappuccino
- Italian: cappuccino
- Portuguese: cappuccino
- Russian: капучи́но
- Spanish: capuchino
- French: cappuccino
- German: Cappuccino
- Italian: cappuccino
- Portuguese: cappuccino
- Spanish: capuchino
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