coffee substitute
- noun
- /ˈkɔːfi ˈsʌbstɪtjuːt/
:
sustituto del café
- Down on the street, people were pulling the first funeral wagons laden with bread and coffee substitute.
On top of that, if roasted, they take on a flavor that's just like your roasted coffee beans and make an excellent caffeine free coffee substitute.
- On top of that, if roasted, they take on a flavor that's just like your roasted coffee beans and make an excellent caffeine free coffee substitute.
Examples
-
Even Pamela Jones, author of the recent Just Weeds: History, Myth and Uses (Prentice Hall, 1991), admits she knows of no normal use for quack grass in the human diet except as a coffee substitute or a bread flour in times of famine.
Academic text (1992) -
With a spoiled, unforgiving grimace, she swallowed cup after cup of the coffee substitute the doctor now forced her to use.
Fiction book (1992) -
And so chicory has been used as a coffee substitute for many, many, many years.
-
Chicory is often used as a coffee substitute because of its rich flavor and aroma.
-
Many people choose dandelion root as a coffee substitute for its health benefits and caffeine-free properties.
-
Roasted barley makes a delicious coffee substitute for those looking to avoid caffeine.
Synonyms
3
2.4
A coffee with most or all of the caffeine removed
How Coffee-Like
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from 'coffee' (the beverage) plus 'substitute' (an alternative that fills its role): a product used in place of coffee. This composition follows a common noun + modifier pattern and is cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
The noun coffee substitute comes from times when real coffee was hard to get, so people roasted grains or roots like barley or chicory to make a drink that tasted like coffee. These drinks were a substitute—a 'alternative to coffee'—so the phrase now means any drink used instead of coffee.