café au lait vs coffee

café au lait

noun
  • A light coffee colour. 

  • A mixture of coffee and hot milk. 

  • Coffee and hot milk served in separate jugs as a breakfast drink. 

coffee

noun
  • A pale brown colour, like that of milk coffee. 

  • A tropical plant of the genus Coffea. 

  • The powder made by roasting and grinding the seeds. 

  • The seeds of the plant used to make coffee, called ‘beans’ due to their shape. 

  • A serving of this beverage. 

  • The end of a meal, when coffee is served. 

  • A beverage made by infusing the beans of the coffee plant in hot water. 

adj
  • Of a pale brown colour, like that of milk coffee. 

  • Of a table: a small, low table suitable for people in lounge seating to put coffee cups on. 

verb
  • To drink coffee. 

  • To give coffee. 

How often have the words café au lait and coffee occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )