delicatessen

First attested in 1864, borrowed from German Delikatessen, the plural of Delikatesse ("delicacy, fine food"), sometimes spelled Delicatesse(n) at the time. That German word came from French délicatesse, tracing back to délicat ("fine"), from Latin delicatus ("alluring").

The word originally referred to fine foods themselves, but it was so often paired with words like "shop" or "store" in phrases such as delicatessen store that people eventually dropped those extra words, letting delicatessen alone come to mean the store.

It shares its root with délicat and, further back, Latin delicatus — the same idea of something alluring or fine that runs through French délicatesse.