Knafa Bjoz

The word knafeh: spellings and meanings

Kunafa, knafeh, kanafeh, künefe, كنافة. Where the word comes from, what old dictionaries say it means, and why it is spelled so many ways.

By Knafa Bjoz editorsPublished

Also known as: kunafa, kanafeh, knafeh, kenafeh, künefe, konafa, kadayıf, كنافة, كنافه

One word, many spellings

In Arabic the word is كنافة (kunāfa), often written كنافه in everyday use. Arabic has sounds and short vowels that English letters don’t match exactly, and the word is pronounced differently from region to region, so English spellings vary: kunafa, knafeh, kanafeh, kenafeh, konafa. In Turkish it is künefe.

This site writes “knafeh” in English text and keeps local names for regional dishes, such as Egyptian konafa or Turkish künefe.

What the dictionaries say

Edward Lane’s 19th-century Arabic-English dictionary defines kunafa as “a kind of pastry, resembling vermicelli”, made from fine flour and water.[1]

The classic Arabic dictionary Tāj al-ʿArūs defines kunafa as “these qatayif that are eaten”, calls the person who makes it a kanafānī, and marks the word as colloquial.[2] Reinhart Dozy’s dictionary of later Arabic lists it as a sweet of the post-classical period.[3]

Lane also notes a second sense: kunafa as the equivalent of “thread qatayif”.[1] That link between the two sweets survives in Turkish. The Turkish Language Association’s dictionary traces kadayıf to the Arabic qaṭāʾif, and defines tel kadayıf, “thread kadayıf”, as a dough poured in thin threads and dried on a hot metal plate. Künefe itself is “a kind of tel kadayıf with cheese, eaten hot”.[5]

Where the word comes from

Nobody knows for certain. Daniel Newman, a historian of Arabic cooking, traces it to the Coptic kenefiten, a kind of loaf or cake.[4] The Arabic dictionaries list it under the root k-n-f,[2] but they do not explain how the sweet got its name.

For what kunafa meant in medieval kitchens, see The history of knafeh.

Sources

  1. 1.Edward William Lane. An Arabic-English Lexicon, entry "kunáfah". Williams & Norgate (1863–93), online edition.
  2. 2.Murtaḍā al-Zabīdī. Tāj al-ʿArūs, root k-n-f. Arabic Lexicon (online edition). In Arabic.
  3. 3.Reinhart Dozy. Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes, entry "kunāfa". Arabic Lexicon (online edition, Arabic translation).
  4. 4.Daniel Newman. Medieval Egyptian Kunafa. Eat Like A Sultan, 2024.
  5. 5.Güncel Türkçe Sözlük, entries "künefe", "kadayıf" and "tel kadayıf". Türk Dil Kurumu (Turkish Language Association). In Turkish.