hostel

Meaning

Noun

1. A commercial overnight lodging place, with dormitory accommodation and shared facilities, especially a youth hostel.
2. A temporary refuge for the homeless providing a bed and sometimes food.
3. (obsolete) A small, unendowed college in Oxford or Cambridge.
4. (South-Africa, South-Asia) A university or school dormitory, a place of accommodation for students.

Verb

1. (intransitive) To stay in a hostel during one's travels.
2. (transitive) To lodge (a person) in a hostel.

Synonyms

inn

dormitory

hotel

🏨

youth hostel

guest house

motel

hall of residence

boarding house

lodge

hostelry

guesthouse

dormitory

hall of residence

lodging

residence hall

boarding school

hospice

tavern

public house

student lodging

auberge

lodging house

posada

bunkhouse

dorm

flophouse

home

🏠

hostler

nursing home

ostler

refuge

rest home

sanatorium

shelter

storehouse

rest stop

rest house

battered women’s shelter

hospitium

innkeeping

Translations

albergue

Herberge

posada

🏨

ostello

herberg

auberge

albergue

logement

ξενώνας νεότητας

alberg

ξενώνας

albergo

🏨

Jugendherberge

auberge de jeunesse

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈhɑstəl/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: hostel

In summary

From Middle English hostel, from Old French hostel, ostel, from Late Latin hospitale (“hospice”), from Classical Latin hospitalis (“hospitable”) itself from hospes (“host”) + -alis (“-al”). Doublet of hotel and hospital. Obsolete from the 16th to 18th centuries, until it was revived by Walter Scott.