zarf

Likely from Ottoman Turkish ظرف (zarf), from Arabic ظَرْف (ẓarf).

zarf (plural zarfs)

1. An ornamental container designed to hold a coffee cup or teacup and insulate it from the hand of the drinker.
   • 1860, Edward William Lane, “V: Domestic Life”, in An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, page 138:

     In presenting the coffee, the servant holds the foot of the zarf with his thumb and first finger. In receiving the fingán and zarf, he makes use of both hands, place the left beneath and the right above at the same instant.

   • 2025 September 17, James Doubek, “What to know about zarfs, the fanciest way to drink coffee”, in Word of the Week‎^[1], NPR, retrieved 17 September 2025:

     Cenk Girginol, a Turkish coffee consultant and author of the book Coffee: From the Soil to the Cup, says zarfs began to be used at the end of the 17th century and beginning of the 18th century. […] By the 19th century, goldsmiths in Geneva were making zarfs to export, according to the Khalili Collections. Recent auctions and museum collections show zarfs that were made in France, Syria, Iran and Switzerland. A zarf in the Louvre's collection, covered in emeralds and diamonds, was owned by Abdul Hamid II, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Likely from Ottoman Turkish ظرف, ultimately from Arabic ظَرْف (ẓarf, “container”).

zarf m (plural zarfe, definite zarfi, definite plural zarfet)

1. envelope

• FGJSSH: Fjalor i gjuhës së sotme shqipe [Dictionary of the modern Albanian language]‎^[2], 1980
• “zarf”, in FGJSH: Fjalor i gjuhës shqipe [Dictionary of the Albanian language] (in Albanian), 2006
• Newmark, L. (1999), “zarf”, in Oxford Albanian-English Dictionary‎^[3]

Borrowed from Ottoman Turkish ظرف (zarf).

• IPA^(key): /zarf/

zarf n (plural zarfuri)

1. (obsolete) metal support for a teacup

• “zarf”, in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language) (in Romanian), 2004–2025
• zarf in Academia Română, Micul dicționar academic, ediția a II-a, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2010. →ISBN

• zȁlf, zȁf

Borrowed from Ottoman Turkish ظرف (zarf), from Arabic ظَرْف (ẓarf).

• IPA^(key): /zârf/

zȁrf m inan (Cyrillic spelling за̏рф)

1. zarf
2. envelope
3. armor, cover

• “zarf”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025
• Škaljić, Abdulah (1966), Turcizmi u srpskohrvatskom jeziku, Sarajevo: Svjetlost, page 647

Inherited from Ottoman Turkish ظرف (zarf), from Arabic ظَرْف (ẓarf, “container”).

• IPA^(key): /zaɾf/

• Audio:

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zarf (definite accusative zarfı, plural zarflar)

1. envelope
2. (grammar) adverb

   Synonym: belirteç

• Nişanyan, Sevan (2002–), “zarf”, in Nişanyan Sözlük