hostess

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English hostesse, also ostesse,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French ostesse, also hostesse,^[4][5][6][7] the feminine of oste (“host, guest”),^[2][6][8] now hôtesse.^[4][9] The Old French noun is formed with the suffix that gave English -ess.^[4][2] Etymonline allows that the English word may also have been formed from host and -ess.^[9] The Old French masculine is from Latin hospes (“guest, stranger; host”);^[9] Etymonline notes that the Latin word for a hostess was hospita, and that Old French also had ostelaine.^[9] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from about 1150, for a woman who receives guests in her house or keeps an inn or lodging house.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A woman who keeps an inn or a public lodging house: about 1290, in the South English Legendary.^[4][10] Etymonline dates the word to the late 13th century,^[9] and Dictionary.com to 1250–1300.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The innkeeper's sense, with the old phrase mine hostess, came first;^[4][9] by about 1385 Chaucer used the word for a woman who lodges and entertains guests,^[4][3] and Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "a female host", quoting Macbeth.^[12] In the Wycliffite Bible it once meant a female guest, a sense that soon died out.^[4][10] The sense of a woman presiding at a dinner party or social gathering is recorded by 1822.^[9] In the 20th century the word was given to women employed to look after people: a woman paid to entertain customers in a night-club (1931), often with a suggestion of prostitution,^[4][9][13] and an air hostess or a woman doing the same job on a train (1936).^[4][10] The verb, to act as hostess, appears in 1927 in Merriam-Webster's dating^[2] and in 1946 in the OED's.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1290 – a woman who keeps an inn or lodging house.^[4]
• c. 1385 – a woman who lodges and entertains guests, in Chaucer.^[4]
• before 1425 – a female guest (obsolete, rare).^[4]
• 1822 – a woman who presides at a dinner party or social gathering.^[9]
• 1927 – verb, to act as hostess.^[2] The OED's first record of the verb is from 1946.^[4]
• 1931 – a woman employed to entertain customers at a night-club.^[4][10]
• 1936 – an air hostess, or a woman doing the same job on a train.^[4][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A woman who receives and entertains guests, at home or in a social or official role.^[14][2][4]
2. A woman who keeps an inn or hotel.^[14][2][4]
3. A woman employed to greet and seat customers, as in a restaurant.^[14][2]
4. A woman who presents or interviews guests on a radio or television programme.^[14]
5. A woman employed to dance with or entertain customers in a dance hall or nightclub; sometimes a euphemism for a prostitute.^[14][4][13]
6. An air hostess.^[4]
7. (obsolete) A female guest.^[4][10]

Verb

1. To act as hostess, or to be the hostess of a party or other event: She hostessed the charity lunch every spring.^[2][4]

Word family

• hostess-ship
• hostess gown

Related words

• host
• hospitable
• hostel
• hotel
• hospice

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
4. ^ 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
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c d e f Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
14. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt