hoste

Forms

hoste m (plural hostes, feminine hostessa, feminine plural hostesses)^[1] Old Catalan wrote hoste and oste.^[2][1][3] The feminine is hostessa.^[4][1] The final vowel is [ə] in Central and Balearic Catalan and [e] in North-Western and Valencian.^[5][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Catalan oste, which is inherited from Latin hospes (“host; guest”).^{[6][5][7][8][1]}

The same Latin word is Occitan òste, French hôte, Spanish huésped, Italian ospite and Romanian oaspete.^[9][1]

Latin ⟨hospes⟩ is a compound of hostis and the root of potis (“able”), from Proto-Italic *hostipotis.^[10][1] Wiktionary takes it back to *gʰóstipotis, and de Vaan compares *gospodь (“lord”).^[1][10] Coromines explains the original sense as “the master of a guest, the one who receives him in his house”; through the ancient custom of reciprocal hospitality the word came to mean the guest as well, and both senses passed into all the Romance languages.^[6] In most of them, as in Catalan, both senses survived, though the modern language uses the word almost only for the guest.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Coromines and the GDLC date the word to 1271.^[6][8] In the tariff of the Barcelona brokers of that year the hoste is the keeper of an inn who receives the broker's fee when a slave is sold in his house, almost the same person as the hostaler.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval texts the word meant the innkeeper, the one who lodges a traveller, and also the guest or lodger.^[11][6] Llull's messengers address the innkeeper as Sènyer hoste.^[2][6] In Muntaner's account of the journey to Bordeaux the hoste is a servant in charge of a traveller's lodging.^[6] The Costums de Tortosa of 1272 rule on the goods a guest who lodges with the innkeeper loses at the inn.^[11]

The 19th-century dictionaries define hoste as someone who lodges in another's house, and Pal·las adds the keeper of an inn.^[12][13] The modern language adds the senses of a person who receives visitors at a fair or congress, of the flight attendant (mostly as hostessa), and, in biology, of the organism on which a parasite lives.^[8][4]

The family is old: hostal is recorded in the 13th century (Desclot), hostaler in Llull, hostatge in 1460 (Roig); hotel was borrowed from French about 1900.^[7]

Timeline

• 1271 – the tariff of the Barcelona brokers: pac 12 drs. al hoste.^[6]
• 1272 – the Costums de Tortosa: a guest who lodges with the innkeeper.^[11]
• 1314 – Pere Marsili's chronicle: lo franc hoste, a guest.^[11]
• 1803 – Esteve, Bellvitges and Juglà give hoste for both the host and the guest.^[14]
• 1839 – Labèrnia defines it as someone lodged in another's house.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A guest lodged free of charge in someone's house.^[8][4][5]
2. A guest or lodger at an inn, boarding house or hotel.^[8][4][5]
3. A host, a person who lodges someone in their house.^[8][4]
4. (historical) The keeper of an inn, an innkeeper.^[8][11]
5. A person in charge of receiving visitors at a fair, congress or agency; a flight attendant.^[8][4]
6. (biology) The organism on which or at whose expense a parasite lives.^[8]

Word family

• hostal
• hostaler
• hostalatge
• hostatge
• hostatjar
• hostessa

Related words

• hospital
• hospici
• hotel
• Latin hospes
• French hôte
• Spanish huésped

Usage notes

The 19th-century dictionaries record the proverb hostes vingueren que de casa nos tragueren, a reproach to someone who wants to rule in another's house.^[12][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Nou glossari general lul·lià (NGGL), Centre de Documentació Ramon Llull, Universitat de Barcelona, https://nggl.ub.edu, p. s.v. hoste
3. ^ Torruella, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel; Martines, Josep (dirs.), Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), https://www.cica.cat, p. s.v. hoste
4. ^ a b c d e f Institut d'Estudis Catalans, Diccionari essencial de la llengua catalana (DEIEC), online, https://deiec.iec.cat, p. s.v. hoste
5. ^ a b c d Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. hoste
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 4, 822
7. ^ a b Bruguera, Jordi (1996), Diccionari etimològic, Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, p. 495
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana; online edition, https://www.diccionari.cat, p. s.v. hoste
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c d e Faraudo de Saint-Germain, Lluís, Vocabulari de la llengua catalana medieval, online edition, Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. s.v. hoste
12. ^ a b c Labèrnia, Pere (1839–1840), Diccionari de la llengua catalana ab la correspondencia castellana y llatina, 2 vols., Barcelona, p. s.v. hoste
13. ^ Vallès, Emili (1927), Pal·las: diccionari català il·lustrat, Barcelona: Salvat, p. s.v. hoste
14. ^ a b Esteve, Joaquim; Bellvitges, Josep; Juglà, Antoni (1803–1805), Diccionario catalán-castellano-latino, 2 vols., Barcelona, p. s.v. hoste