carafe
Americannoun
-
carafes
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of carafe
1780–90; < French < Italian caraff ( a ) < Spanish garrafa, perhaps < dialectal Arabic gharrāfah dipper, drinking vessel
Explanation
Wine is often served in a carafe, a flask, usually of glass or metal, with a wide mouth. It usually presents a more elegant way to serve than using the wine's original bottle or — heavens! — box. While carafes have been used since very early times, the word itself came through Spanish, Italian, and French, probably from the Arabic word gharrafa "ladle, scoop." It entered English by 1786.
Vocabulary lists containing carafe
English Food and Drink Words Derived from Arabic
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Shadowshaper
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Vocabulary Video Contest (2013) - List 1
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The tea-hued coffee, which he presented in an individual carafe over an ice sphere, tasted like Raisinets and wound up being the highlight of my search.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 17, 2026
“It’s not about me,” he said before fishing a malaria pill out of his suit pocket and chasing it with borrowed coffee from a nearby carafe.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 12, 2025
For wines, the best deals are the $45-$55 wine bottles; a server will pour the wine into a plastic carafe for you to take back to your seat.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 19, 2023
It's simple, drip Intelligentsia, but it's served cold in a carafe alongside a glass packed with crushed ice, and, if you like, a smaller carafe of cream and a complementary slice of coffee cake.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2023
Dominic sat at the table and poured himself a cup of coffee from the carafe.
From "Shadowshaper" by Daniel José Older
Its glass carafes appeal to eco-anxious consumers who want to eradicate microplastics from their lives.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
Just as they did in Beethoven's time, euphoric revellers still spill out onto the paths of the otherwise sleepy outskirts in the vine-lined Viennese hillsides after a few carafes of white- or red-wine spritzers.
From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026
It’s like dining in a Guatemalan art gallery, right down to the beaded clay water carafes placed on your table, each covered with a vivid embroidered floral runner.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 11, 2023
Holzer focuses intently on the tray in front of her — a portable mise en place loaded with shakers, glasses, ice, and a line of little carafes — prepping perfect petite mint leaves just so.
From Salon ● Feb. 16, 2020
We didn’t even have carafes at my house.
From "From Twinkle, with Love" by Sandhya Menon
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
