café au lait

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English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Borrowed from French café au lait (literally coffee with milk).

Pronunciation

Noun

café au lait (countable and uncountable, plural café au laits or cafés au lait)

  1. A mixture of coffee and hot milk.
    Coordinate terms: caffè latte, latte, café noir
    • 1985, Margaret Atwood, “Soul Scrolls”, in The Handmaid’s Tale, Toronto, Ont.: McClelland and Stewart, →ISBN, page 164:
      It was like using a language I'd once known but had nearly forgotten, a language having to do with customs that had long before passed out of the world: café au lait at an outdoor table, with a brioche, absinthe in a tall glass, or shrimp in a cornucopia of newspaper; things I'd once read about but had never seen.
  2. Coffee and hot milk served in separate jugs as a breakfast drink.
  3. A light coffee colour.
    café au lait:  
    • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 240:
      Seen all of a piece like this, in a picture that fits snugly into the lens of any camera, Kersey is a peaceful, multi-coloured Toytown of a village, whose red-tiled roofs are subdued by just the right amount of weathering and lichen, and whose overhanging gables thrust forward in a quiet brilliance of red-and-yellow ochre, pink, white and café-au-lait.

Usage notes

Oxford Canadian Spelling indicates the preferred plural form is cafés au lait.

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ Robert Pontisso and Eric Sinkins, editors (1999), Oxford Canadian Spelling, Oxford University Press, published 2004, →ISBN, page 72, column 1

Danish

Alternative forms

Etymology

From French café au lait (coffee with milk).

Pronunciation

Noun

café au lait c (singular definite café au laiten or café au lait'en, plural indefinite café au laiter or café au lait'er)

  1. café au lait

Inflection

Declension of café au lait
common
gender
singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative café au lait café au laiten
café au lait'en
café au laiter
café au lait'er
café au laiterne
café au lait'erne
genitive café au laits café au laitens
café au lait'ens
café au laiters
café au lait'ers
café au laiternes
café au lait'ernes

Further reading

French

French Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia fr

Pronunciation

Noun

café au lait m (plural cafés au lait)

  1. white coffee, coffee with milk
    Deux cafés au lait, s'il vous plait.
    Two white coffees, please.

Coordinate terms

Descendants

Adjective

café au lait (invariable)

  1. light brown, café au lait
    une peau café au laitlight brown skin