pousse-café

[ poos-ka-fey; French poos-ka-fey ]

/ ˌpus kæˈfeɪ; French pus kaˈfeɪ /

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noun, plural pousse-ca·fés

[poos-ka-feyz; French poos-ka-fey]. /ˌpus kæˈfeɪz; French pus kaˈfeɪ/.

an after-dinner drink of liqueurs of various colors and specific gravities, carefully poured into a glass so as to remain floating in separate layers.

a small glass of liqueur served after coffee.

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Origin of pousse-café

1875–80; <French: literally, (it) pushes on (the) coffee

Words nearby pousse-café

pourparty, pourpoint, pourriture noble, pour test, pousada, pousse-café, poussette, Poussin, pou sto, pout, pouter

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2021

How to use pousse-café in a sentence

As a cafe in Sydney, Australia came under siege by a hostage-taking gunman on Monday, those nearby attempted to flee the area.
In Defense of Uber’s Awful Sydney Surge Pricing|Olivia Nuzzi|December 16, 2014|DAILY BEAST
America already has a cereal cafe, Cereality, which has a store in Virginia and at the Dallas Fort Worth airport.
Cereal Cafe’s Big Bowl of Hate|David Levesley|December 14, 2014|DAILY BEAST
But in October 2010, Palestinian security forces stormed into an Internet cafe and arrested me.
What It’s Like to Be an Atheist in Palestine|Waleed al-Husseini, Movements.Org|December 8, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Boyfriend, a New Orleans-based rapper who prefers not to reveal her real name, gets up from her decaf cafe au lait.
From Church of Christ to Pansexual Rapper|Tyler Gillespie|November 28, 2014|DAILY BEAST

In January, an attack on a Lebanese cafe popular with expats left 21 people dead.
Heart of Darkness: Into Afghanistan’s Taliban Valley|Matt Trevithick, Daniel Seckman|November 15, 2014|DAILY BEAST
They take in a couple of French papers at this cafe, and the same number of Belgian journals.
Little Travels and Roadside Sketches|William Makepeace Thackeray
Their generosity did not suffice for his dissipations, his cafe bills and his unbridled taste for billiards.
Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A -- Z|Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
No long endless tables and big red velvet divans, as in a cafe!
A Summary History of the Palazzo Dandolo|Anonymous
At Tarascon, in a cafe, an hour ago; fifteen men attacked me, and I seized a knife to defend myself.
File No. 113|Emile Gaboriau
I tore off the wrappings and spread out the diamonds on the cafe table; I could not believe they were real.
In the Fog|Richard Harding Davis

British Dictionary definitions for pousse-café

pousse-café

/ French (puskafe) /

noun

a drink of liqueurs of different colours in unmixed layers

any liqueur taken with coffee at the end of a meal

Word Origin for pousse-café

literally: coffee-pusher

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