cafe
/ˌkæˈfeɪ/noun
cafe is a noun meaning “Alternative form of café” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-A-F-E and has 2 syllables, and it appears 12 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of cafe is cafés or cafes.
What does cafe mean?
noun
- 1
Alternative form of café.
- 2
A convenience store, originally one that sold coffee and similar basic items.
noun
- 1
A coffee shop; an establishment selling coffee and sometimes other non-alcoholic beverages, simple meals or snacks, with a facility to consume them on the premises.
- 2
CanadaA small restaurant of any genre.
noun
- 1
Acronym of Corporate Average Fuel Economy.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce cafe?
- US /ˌkæˈfeɪ/
- US /ˈkæfeɪ/
- UK /ˈkæfeɪ/
Cafe has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-cafe.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-café.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of cafe
- cafés plural
- caffè
- caffe
- caffé
- caff UK, informal
- cafes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is cafe?
Cafe appears 12 times per million words in written English, the 6,138th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Cafe in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense coffee shop:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | café |
| German | Café, Kaffeehaus |
| Portuguese | café, cafeteria |
| Spanish | café, cafetería, cafetín, cafetucho, bar cafetero, cuchitril (despective) |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.