Everyday LifeGreek → English
Canape
/ˈkænəpeɪ/noun
A small piece of bread or pastry with a savoury topping, served with drinks.
The Greek roots
κώνωψ
kṓnōps
gnat, mosquito
Literally: “gnat net”
Follow a root:κώνωψ1 word
The story of the word
The Greek word underneath is κώνωψ, a gnat. A κωνώπιον was a bed screened with netting against them, and Latin conopeum carried the idea into French, where it split into two: canopy for the hanging, canapé for the couch beneath it. When French cooks began laying a scrap of something across a piece of bread, they named the dish for the furniture, so every canapé is a topping on its little sofa under a remembered mosquito net.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1890s
In a sentence
Waiters circled with canapés nobody could eat one-handed while holding a glass.