hostel

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English hostel, also ostel,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French hostel, also ostel,^[5][6][3] from Medieval Latin hospitāle (“inn, large house, hospice”).^[6][3][7][8] The Old French word, recorded from the 11th century, meant house, home, dwelling, inn and lodging;^[6] it became French hôtel,^[5][9][6] and has parallels in Old Occitan ostal and Spanish hostal.^[5] The Anglo-Norman form ostel is recorded from the early 12th century for lodgings, an inn or a house.^[10] The Latin noun is also the source of hospital and, through Modern French, of hotel; the forms diverged in Old French.^[11][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A place to stay; the house where one lodges: before 1325, in the Genesis and Exodus (composed about 1250), where Laban gives Eliezer good hostel.^[5][2] Barnhart dates the word to about 1250, and finds it earlier as the surname Ostel (1232);^[3] Etymonline gives the early 13th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word meant both lodging or entertainment and the place where one lodged, as in taken hostel, to put up somewhere;^[2][5] from about 1384, in Chaucer, it was also a public inn.^[5][9] In 1536 it was first used of a house of residence for students,^[5][9] and between 1587 and 1670 also of a town mansion, a sense later taken by hotel.^[5][8] Etymonline says the word fell out of use after the 16th century and was revived, together with hostelry, by Sir Walter Scott in 1808;^[6][12] it was then used in an archaic way for an old inn.^[8] In the 20th century it was narrowed to supervised, inexpensive lodging for particular groups, such as students, workers, the homeless and young travellers:^[13][14] youth hostel is recorded by 1929 in Etymonline, and the short hostel for one from 1931.^[6][5] The verb, to lodge, dates from about 1330 and survives in English dialect,^[5][15] and in the mid 20th century a new verb meant to travel staying at youth hostels.^[8][15]

Timeline

• 1232 – the surname Ostel.^[3]
• c. 1250 – a place to stay, a lodging (obsolete by 1500).^[5][3]
• 1303 – lodging, entertainment, as in to take hostel, to put up.^[5]
• c. 1330 – verb, to lodge, put up.^[5]
• c. 1384 – a public inn for travellers, in Chaucer's House of Fame.^[5]
• 1536 – a residence for university students.^[5][9]
• 1587 – a town mansion (obsolete by 1670).^[5]
• 1808 – revived by Sir Walter Scott.^[6]
• 1929 – youth hostel.^[6]
• 1931 – hostel alone for a youth hostel.^[5]
• mid 20th century – verb, to stay at youth hostels.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A building with cheap, supervised lodging for travellers, especially a youth hostel: They spent a week walking the coast, sleeping in hostels.^[15][14][5]
2. A building giving overnight shelter to people in need, such as the homeless.^[14]
3. (chiefly British) A residence run by an institution for a particular group, such as students, nurses or workers; a dormitory.^[14][15][5]
4. A home for the elderly or the chronically ill, or living quarters for newly arrived immigrants.^[15]
5. (archaic) An inn; a hostelry.^[14][8][5]
6. (obsolete, 1587–1670) A town mansion.^[5][8]

Verb

1. To travel, usually on foot or by bicycle, staying overnight at hostels.^[15][8]
2. (dialect) To lodge.^[15][5]

Word family

• hostelry
• youth hostel

Related words

• host
• hostler
• hotel
• hospital
• hospice
• hospitality
• ostler

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster