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Origin and history of java

java(n.)

"coffee," 1850, short for Java coffee (1787), originally a kind of coffee grown on Java and nearby islands of modern Indonesia. By early 20c. it meant coffee generally. The island name is shortened from Sanskrit Yavadvipa "Island of Barley," from yava "barley" + dvipa "island." Related: Javan (c. 1600); Javanese (1704).

also from 1850

Entries linking to java

joe(n.)

"coffee," by 1932, likely derived from Java, a noted source of fine coffee, as explained in the glossary of naval terms in Robert P. Erdman, "Reserve Officer's Manual, United States Navy" (Washington, 1932). The guess that it is from the name of U.S. coffee merchant Joseph Martinson (c. 1880-1949) is not chronologically impossible, but it wants evidence and seems to have originated in the company's advertisements (1972).

Earlier in American English (1772) it was the colloquial name of a Portuguese or Brazilian coin worth about $8, shortened from Johannes in this sense (1758), the Modern Latin form of Portuguese João (see John), name of a king of Portugal whose head and Latin inscription appeared on the coin.

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    coffee
    "drink made from the ground and roasted seeds of a tree originally native to Arabia and Abyssinia," c. 1600, from Dutch koffie, from Turkish kahveh, from Arabic qahwah "coffee," which Arab etymologists connected with a word meaning "wine," but it is perhaps rather from the Kaffa
    benzoin
    1550s), from French benjoin (16c.), which comes via Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian from Arabic luban jawi "incense of Java...
    pithecanthropus
    Eugène Dubois, physician of the Dutch army in Java, to remains he found there in 1891....
    Rafflesia
    genus of parasitic plants native to Java and Sumatra, 1820, named for Sir T....
    bantam
    common name for very small varieties of the domestic hen, 1749, after Bantam, former Dutch residency in Java, from which...
    Hezbollah
    [Clifford Geertz, "The Religion of Java," Chicago, 1960]...
    potato
    traders carried the crop to all their shipping ports and the sweet potato was quickly adopted from Africa to India and Java...
    caffeine
    trimethyl-derivative of xanthine, 1830, from German Kaffein, coined by chemist F.F. Runge (1795-1867), apparently from German Kaffee "coffee" (see coffee) + chemical suffix -ine (2) (German -in). So called because the alkaloid was found in coffee beans; its presence accounts for
    drink
    Old English drincan "to swallow water or other fluid," also "to swallow up, engulf" (class III strong verb; past tense dranc, past participle druncen), from Proto-Germanic *drenkanan (source also of Old Saxon drinkan, Old Frisian drinka, Dutch drinken, Old High German trinkan, Ge
    haunt
    early 13c., "to practice habitually, busy oneself with, take part in," from Old French hanter "to frequent, visit regularly; have to do with, be familiar with; indulge in, cultivate" (12c.), of uncertain origin, perhaps from Old Norse heimta "bring home," from Proto-Germanic *hai

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