hospitable

Etymology

It is borrowed from French hospitable, a French adjective now obsolete,^[2][3][4] recorded by Cotgrave in 1611.^[2] Barnhart calls the source Middle French, and explains its suffix as a change from the older hospital (“hospitable”).^[5] The French word is formed as if from Medieval Latin *hospitābilis,^[6][5][3][2] which Merriam-Webster gives as a New Latin word.^[7] The Oxford dictionaries derive it from hospiter (“to receive a guest”), from Medieval Latin hospitō (“to receive as a guest”).^[8][9] Behind these stand Latin hospitor (“to be a guest”)^[6][5] and hospes (“guest, host”),^[6][3][4][8] the source of host.^[6][4] The American Heritage Dictionary refers the noun to Proto-Indo-European *ghos-ti-,^[3] and Klein takes it as a compound that first meant "lord of strangers",^[4] while Hoad calls it of unknown origin.^[10] The classical adjective was hospitālis, but in Old French this became a noun, which gave English hospital.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of people, offering welcome and entertainment to strangers: 1570, in Levens's Manipulus Vocabulorum.^[2][5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also gives about 1570,^[7] and Etymonline the 1560s.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word first described people; things, feelings and qualities followed in 1612, in Drayton's Poly-Olbion.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as giving entertainment or being kind to strangers, and quoted "my hospitable favour" from King Lear.^[11] From the mid-17th century it was extended beyond guests to mean open and well disposed in mind, or ready to receive something;^[2][8] the OED's first example is from a letter of 1655 by Edward Hyde.^[2] Collins still lists this sense, as being receptive to ideas.^[12]

Timeline

• 1570 – of people, welcoming to strangers and guests.^[2][5]
• 1612 – of things, feelings and qualities.^[2]
• 1655 – open and generous in mind, disposed to welcome something.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Generous and cordial in receiving and entertaining guests or strangers: Our hospitable neighbours fed us for a week.^[7][12][8]
2. Suggesting or offering such a welcome: a hospitable kitchen.^[7][2]
3. Receptive or open: a mind hospitable to fresh arguments.^[12][8][2]

Word family

• hospitably
• hospitableness

Related words

• host
• hospital
• hospitality
• inhospitable

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins