قهوه

قهوه is borrowed from Arabic قَهْوَة (qahwa). The Arabic word originally meant "wine" in pre-Islamic Arabia, and the term shifted to the new bean drink as coffee spread out of Yemen in the 15th century. From Arabic, the word traveled to Ottoman Turkish as kahve, then into European languages: Italian "caffè," Dutch "koffie," English "coffee," French "café." Persian inherited the word directly from Arabic during the early Islamic period, even though coffee as a drink only spread to Iran centuries later. The 16th-century Safavid coffee houses (قهوه‌خانه) became important social spaces, hosting poets, storytellers, and political conversation. When tea became dominant in the 19th century, the قهوه‌خانه institution survived but the drinks changed. Modern Iranian "tea-houses" still bear the older name. The word kept the building, even after the drink switched.