coffee shop
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of coffee shop
An Americanism dating back to 1830–40
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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.
The quality, he says over a bottle of San Pellegrino at a coffee shop in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant on a sunny April afternoon, is “subconscious.”
From Salon • May 15, 2026
One afternoon, I went to a coffee shop in Santa Monica where a middle-aged red-headed guy with a beard was playing Van Morrison songs on his guitar.
From Los Angeles Times • May 1, 2026
Birgit White, who works at a Main Street coffee shop and has lived in Festus since the 1980s, said she clips everything she reads about data centers out of the newspaper.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 26, 2026
“Leave those boxes unpacked and get out of your home. Join a class, walk to a coffee shop or hang out at the library.”
From MarketWatch • Apr. 22, 2026
The doctors encouraged her to take a rest—Ernest would be slow coming out of sedation, they said—so she repaired to a late-night coffee shop.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
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Definitions 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.