kitchenette n.

"room in which food is cooked, part of a building fitted out for cooking," c. 1200, from Old English cycene "kitchen," from Proto-Germanic *kokina (source also of Middle Dutch cökene, Old High German chuhhina, German Küche, Danish kjøkken), probably borrowed from Vulgar Latin *cocina (source also of French cuisine, Spanish cocina), a variant of Latin coquina "kitchen," from fem. of coquinus "of cooks," from coquus "cook," from coquere "to cook" (from PIE root *pekw- "to cook, ripen").

The Old English word might be directly from Vulgar Latin. Kitchen cabinet "informal but powerful set of advisers" is American English slang, 1832, originally in reference to President Andrew Jackson, whose intimate friends were supposed to have more influence with him than his official advisers. Kitchen midden (1863) in archaeology translates Danish kjøkken mødding. Surname Kitchener ("one employed in or supervising a (monastic) kitchen") is from early 14c.

diminutive word-forming element, from Old French -ette (fem.), used indiscriminately in Old French with masculine form -et (see -et). As a general rule, older words borrowed from French have -et in English, while ones taken in since 17c. have -ette. In use with native words since late 19c., especially among persons who coin new product names, who tend to give it a sense of "imitation, a sort of" (for example flannelette "imitation flannel of cotton," 1876; leatherette, 1855; linenette, 1894). Also in such words as lecturette (1867), sermonette, which, OED remarks, "can scarcely be said to be in good use, though often met with in newspapers."