hospice

Etymology

It is borrowed from French hospice,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Latin hospitium (“hospitality, entertainment; lodging, guest house, inn”),^[2][3][4][1] from hospes (“guest; host; stranger”).^[3][4][1][7] The French word, meaning "hospital, almshouse", continues Old French ospice (“shelter, hospice; hospitality”), recorded from the 13th century.^[4] The Latin noun is also the source of host "one who receives guests", from the same root as hospital and hospitable;^[4][8] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary trace hospes to Proto-Indo-European *ghos-ti- (“stranger, guest, host”).^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A house of rest and shelter for pilgrims, travellers or strangers, especially one kept by a religious order: 1818, in Blackwood's Magazine.^[2][3] Etymonline notes that it was used especially of the refuges kept by monks in the Alpine passes,^[4] and the OED names the houses of the monks of St Bernard.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the 1890s the sense of a rest house was extended to a home for the destitute or the sick;^[3][9] the OED records a hostel for students from 1895^[2] and a nursing home for the dying or incurably ill from 1893,^[2] while Etymonline dates a home for the aged and terminally ill to 1879.^[4] Barnhart describes the modern institution for the care of the terminally ill as a new meaning that appeared in Britain in the 1970s and in the United States in 1976.^[3] The hospice movement, which set up such places, is recorded from 1978 in Etymonline^[4] and hospice alone for the movement from 1979 in the OED.^[2] Merriam-Webster now also defines it as a programme, not only a building, for the physical and emotional care of the terminally ill,^[7] and Collins marks the travellers' sense as archaic.^[10]

Timeline

• 1818 – a rest house for travellers, especially one kept by monks.^[2][3][4]
• 1879 – a home for the aged and terminally ill, according to Etymonline.^[4]
• 1893 – a nursing home for the dying or incurably ill.^[2]
• 1895 – a hostel for students.^[2]
• 1976 – the modern institution for the terminally ill reaches the United States.^[3]
• 1978 – hospice movement.^[4]
• 1979 – the movement for setting up hospices.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A nursing home or programme of care for people who are terminally ill, aiming at their comfort rather than a cure: Her father spent his last weeks in a hospice.^[10][7][2]
2. (archaic) A house of shelter for travellers or pilgrims, especially one kept by a monastic order.^[10][7][2]
3. A lodging for students, young workers or the poor, often run by a religious order.^[7][2]

Related words

• hospital
• hospitable
• host
• hospitality
• hostel
• hotel

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins