kaffiyeh

1 of 2

noun (1)

kaf·​fi·​yeh

less common spelling of keffiyeh

: a checkered scarf traditionally worn as a head covering by some men in the Middle East

Yasser Arafat, who was the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, helped popularize the keffiyeh around the world by almost always wearing one in public.

—Abdallah Fayyad

keffiyeh

2 of 2

noun (2)

kef·​fi·​yeh kə-ˈfē-ə 

variants or less commonly kaffiyeh

: a checkered scarf traditionally worn as a head covering by some men in the Middle East

Yasser Arafat, who was the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, helped popularize the keffiyeh around the world by almost always wearing one in public.

—Abdallah Fayyad

Examples of kaffiyeh in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Yoni picked up the red-and-white kaffiyeh — a headscarf and symbol of Palestinian resistance — that the man dropped and tried to hand it back to him. — Michael Laris, Washington Post, 2 May 2026

That may be why a kaffiyeh on a graying woman in a small town in Germany can still signal defiance. — Thomas Meaney, New Yorker, 2 Feb. 2026

Noun

And at Yale Law School, for example, in three years, and graduated in 2007, never once saw a single person wearing a keffiyeh. — Will Carless, USA Today, 17 July 2026

The campaign was formed after a German court ruled that Buchenwald could refuse entry to visitors who wear a Palestinian keffiyeh, which has been adopted by left-wing anti-Israel protesters. — Shira Li Bartov, Sun Sentinel, 13 Apr. 2026

Word History

Etymology

Noun (2)

Arabic kūfīya, kaffīya, from al-Kufa Al-Kufa, town in Iraq

First Known Use

Noun (2)

1831, in the meaning defined above