café au lait
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café au lait
- /ˌkæfeɪ əʊ ˈleɪ/ UK
- /ˌkæfeɪ oʊ ˈleɪ/ US
- /kæˌfeɪ oʊ ˈleɪ/ US
- /ˌkæfeɪz‿əʊ ˈleɪ/ UK
- /ˌkæfeɪz‿oʊ ˈleɪ/ US
- /kæˌfeɪz-/ US
Rhymes with -eɪ
Where it comes from
Unadapted borrowing from French café au lait (“(noun) coffee with milk; light brown colour of this drink; (adjective) having the light brown colour of coffee with milk”), from café (“coffee”) + au (“with the”) + lait (“milk”).
The noun plural form cafés au lait is also an unadapted borrowing from French cafés au lait.
noun cafés au lait · café au laits · cafe au lait · coffee au lait
-
Coffee mixed with hot milk as a drink; white coffee; (countable) a serving of this.
Good night for to-night—oh! I forgot—pray send me some café au lait: the Duc de Picquigny [Louis Joseph d'Albert, 6th Duke of Chaulnes] (who by the way is somebody's son, as I thought) takes it for snuff, and says it is the new fashion at Paris; I suppose they drink rappee after dinner.
Similar: café con leche, caffè latte, latte
- Coffee and hot milk served in separate jugs as a breakfast drink; (countable) a serving of this. Café au Lait (Coffee with Milk).— […] Take three pints of good, freshly and thoroughly heated milk (but do not boil it), pour it into a hot pitcher, send to the table with six hot cups à café au lait, pouring into each cup half coffee and half milk.
- A light brown colour like that of coffee with milk. Among other monochrome shades of this class, found on highly fired Chinese porcelain, are brown ochre, café au lait, chestnut, capuchin, maroon, dead-leaf (feuille morte), chocolate, bronze, lac-colored (almost black), etc. The darker shades are often highly iridescent.
adjective more café au lait · most café au lait
- Of a light brown colour like that of coffee with milk. Tripod Censer (Ting Lu), of depressed globular form, rounding in to a wide, circular mouth, supported upon three feet of scrolled outline, which spring from the gaping mouths of grotesque lions' heads projecting from the lower surface of the bowl. […] The base is unglazed, with the exception of a ro
- Of a person: having skin of a light brown colour; also, of a person's skin: having this colour; often (potentially offensive) due to mixed black and white parentage or ancestry. A White and Negro married, producing mulatto (café au lait) children. One of these married another mulatto and had a large family—one child much whiter than either parent, one much blacker, and the rest an assortment of varying coffee shades. […] Both the mulattoes, therefore, have six black genes a
- Of patches or spots on the skin: of a light brown colour which is darker than the surrounding skin, characteristic of certain diseases such as neurofibromatosis type I. He [R. W. Taylor] thought […] that roseola was often followed very quickly by pigmentation, and mentioned a case in Charity Hospital, in which café-au-lait spots followed a delicate roseola within a week.
Translations
Every language
noun coffee mixed with hot milk as a drink; a serving of this
| Español | café con leche |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 카페오레 kape'ore |
| 日本語 | カフェオレ kafeore |
| Português | café com leite |
| Français | café au lait |
| Deutsch | Milchkaffee |
| Italiano | caffè e latte, caffè latte |
| Русский | ко́фе с молоко́м kófe s molokóm |
| العربية | قَهْوَة بِالْحَلِيب qahwa bi-l-ḥalīb |
| עברית | קָפֶה הָפוּךְ qafé hafúch |
noun light brown colour like that of coffee with milk
| Français | café au lait |
|---|
adj of a light brown colour like that of coffee with milk
| Français | café au lait |
|---|
adj of a person: having skin of a light brown colour; of a person’s skin: having this colour; often due to mixed black and white parentage or ancestry
| Français | café au lait |
|---|
adj of patches or spots on the skin: of a light brown colour which is darker than the surrounding skin, characteristic of certain diseases
| Français | café au lait |
|---|
Talk about this word "café au lait." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/caf%C3%A9%20au%20lait. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. café au lait. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/caf%C3%A9%20au%20lait "café au lait." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/caf%C3%A9%20au%20lait.Cite this
@misc{cafe_au_lait_2026,
title = {café au lait},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/caf%C3%A9%20au%20lait},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
