barista

[buh-ris-tuh -ree-stuh; Italian bah-rees-tah]

noun, plural ba·ris·tas, ba·ris·ti [buh-ree-stee; Italian bah-rees-tee] /bəˈri sti; Italian bɑ ris ti/.

a person who is specially trained in the making and serving of coffee drinks, as in a coffee bar.

Origin of barista

1980–85; < Italian: “bartender,” from bar “bar” (a loanword from English) + Italian -ista -ist

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for barista

Contemporary Examples of barista

Your HR person is as likely to be as pierced as your barista.
This One Picture of Telly Savalas Refutes All Fears That Progress Has Ended
Nick Gillespie
October 30, 2014
“We were recently in a coffee shop and the barista said they recognized us,” he says.
Pedro Zamora, a Hero in the Real World
Tim Teeman
June 1, 2014
So does the barista at Starbucks, and the checkout clerk at Whole Foods.
Fear And Self-Loathing In Scandinavia: The Fiction Of Karl Ove Knausgaard
Ted Gioia
May 28, 2014
At Glassdoor.com, the employee-review site, workers noted that “barista” jobs at Cosi pay between $8 and $10 an hour.
If Cosi Wants to Make a Profit, It Needs to Increase Wages
Daniel Gross
August 22, 2013
A Starbucks barista was fired after a song he wrote ranting about the chain went viral.
Miners Fired Over ‘Harlem Shake’ Video & Other Job-Killing Memes
Kevin Fallon
March 4, 2013

British Dictionary definitions for barista

barista

noun

a person who makes and serves coffee in a coffee bar

Word Origin for barista

C20: Italian: literally, bartender

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for barista

"bartender in a coffee shop," as a purely English word in use by 1992, from Italian, where it is said to derive ultimately from the English bar (n.2), as borrowed into Italian. The word is of generic gender and may be applied with equal accuracy to women and men (it is said that the typical barista in Italy is a man).