caffe latte
2
2.8
- noun
- /ˈkæfeɪ ˈlɑːteɪ/
:
café con leche
- He always starts his morning with a hot caffe latte before heading to work.
Examples
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Father Amorth, caffe latte?
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"There's a coffee shop downstairs that makes a tolerable caffe latte," he said, and soon they were sitting in a booth, facing each other, taking each other in.
Fiction book (1995) -
You go get Mama a caffe latte... and jelly doughnut, s'il vous plait."
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Typical day: Breakfast: 1 grapefruit, 1 slice whole wheat toast with Swiss cheese, small portion full-fat plain yogurt (3%) with fresh berries, 1 caffe latte
Blog text (30) -
While studying for her exams, she enjoyed a creamy caffe latte in her favorite coffee shop.
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During the meeting, everyone sipped their caffe lattes and enjoyed the lively discussion.
Synonyms
132
1.3
A hot drink of strong espresso mixed with steamed milk
How Milky
Surface Forms
Morphology
caffe + latte
The drink meaning is directly compositional: caffe (coffee) + latte (milk/espresso with steamed milk), so a learner who knows the constituents can infer a coffee-with-milk beverage. Although the phrase is an Italian borrowing, the coffee+milk construction is cross-linguistically common (cf. café au lait, café con leche), making the MWE immediately understandable to B1 learners who know the parts.
Etymology
Caffe latte comes from Italian words: caffè means 'coffee' and latte means 'milk'. So the phrase describes a cup of strong coffee topped with lots of steamed milk, which is why it now means a coffee drink made with espresso and milk.