This week I am introducing the Word of the Week, an item that I will do every Wednesday from now on. Today’s word is…
Restaurant
A word that, luckily for many tourists, is nearly the same in about forty different languages. So, a restaurant is usually easy to find when you’re abroad.
The word restaurant originally comes from the old French word “restorer” meaning to restore or refresh. Apparently, the word restaurant has been used already since the Middle Ages to describe all sorts of rich bouillon-based soups.
One of the first restaurants in eighteenth Century Paris sold bouillons among other dishes and it had a Latin proverb written on its window saying:
Venite Ad Me Omnes Qui Stomacho Laboratis Et Ego Vos Restaurabo
It means “Come to me, all whose stomach is in distress, and I will restore you.”
The restaurant in various languages:
- Czech: v restauraci
- Danish: restauranten
- Dutch: het restaurant
- Finnish: ravintola
- French: le restaurant
- German: das Restaurant
- Greek: το εστιατόριο (to estiatório)
- Hungarian: az étterem
- Icelandic: veitingastaðurinn
- Italian: il ristorante
- Lithuanian: restoranas
- Polish: restauracja
- Portuguese: o restaurante
- Russian: ресторан (ristaran)
- Spanish: el restaurante
- Swedish: restaurangen
- Turkish: restoran
