hospital

Forms

hospital m (plural hospitales)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote ospital, espital, spital and hespital;^[2][3][4] espital and ospital are also the forms of the first records in the Americas.^[2][3][4] Asturian has hespital.^[5]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Late Latin hospitāle (“hospice, guesthouse”), the noun use of Latin hospitālis (“of a guest; hospitable”).^[1][6][7] Gómez de Silva describes hospitāle as the guest room of a house, the neuter of the adjective, which in Medieval Latin came to mean a house for travellers, children or the poor.^[8] The adjective is formed from hospes (“guest; host”).^[9][1]

The popular outcome of the same Latin word is hostal, a guesthouse, and hotel was taken from French in 1855.^[10][7][1] The same word is French hôpital, recorded from about 1170, and its popular outcomes include French hôtel, Italian ospedale, Catalan hostal and Occitan ostal.^[11][12]

The noun is a compound of hostis (“stranger”) and the root of potis (“able”); it goes back to Proto-Italic *hostipotis and Proto-Indo-European *gʰóstipotis, the same compound as Proto-Slavic *gospodь (“lord”).^[13][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DTME and the Breve diccionario date the word to 1154, in the sense of a guesthouse.^[14][7] The CDH's oldest copy is in Berceo's Del sacrificio de la misa (1228–1246, in an early 14th-century copy), and Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo has est sancto ospital founded by a king's ancestors.^[3] In the Fuero Juzgo of 1254 a man may end in the ospital through poverty and illness, the house that took in the poor and pilgrims.^[15]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th century the word was also the name of the military order of the Hospital of Jerusalem, in a charter of 1241 and in the Fueros de Aragón of 1247.^[3] Nebrija's equivalents, espital de pobres mendigos and espital de enechados (Latin orphanotrophium), show that it was a house of charity.^[16] Covarrubias in 1611 listed many kinds: general hospitals for fevers, wounds, syphilis and the insane, hospitals for foundlings and incurables, and houses for pilgrims.^[17] The DTME and Bénaben date the shift towards the modern medical sense to the 16th and 17th centuries.^[14][18]

The 1726 Autoridades defined it as a house where the sick poor, travellers and pilgrims were received and cured, and recorded the old adjective “hospitable” and the phrase estar hecho un hospital for someone always ill.^[19] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 put the care of the sick poor first and recorded the military hospital de la sangre, the field station for the first dressing of wounds; it now defines a centre for diagnosis and treatment, often with research and teaching.^[20][6] Tagalog and Cebuano borrowed the word as Tagalog ospital and Cebuano ospital.^[1]

Timeline

• 1154 – the first record, as a guesthouse.^[7][14]
• 1187 – DEMel's first primary record, in the form spital.^[2]
• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo has ospital.^[3]
• 1241 – the military order of the Hospital of Jerusalem in a charter.^[3]
• 1254 – the Fuero Juzgo uses ospital for a house for the poor.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives espital de pobres mendigos.^[16]
• 1519 – the first record in the Americas, espital in Santo Domingo.^[4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias lists hospitals for the sick, foundlings and pilgrims.^[17]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades also records the adjective “hospitable”.^[19]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records the military hospital de la sangre.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hospital: an establishment for the diagnosis and treatment of the sick, often with research and teaching: La ingresaron en el hospital provincial.^[6][1]
2. (historical) A house that took in the poor and pilgrims for a limited time.^[6]
3. (military) hospital de sangre: a place where the wounded receive first aid in a campaign.^[6][21]

Adjective

1. (obsolete) hospitable, kind and charitable to guests; of good lodging.^[6][19]

Word family

• hospitalario
• hospitalizar
• hospitalero

Related words

• hostal
• hotel
• huésped
• hospicio
• hospitalidad
• Latin hospitālis

Usage notes

Hospital de la sangre is also a jocular name for one's poor relations, and a hospital robado is a house stripped of its furniture.^[6][21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. hospital
3. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. hospital
4. ^ a b c Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. hespital
5. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. hespital
6. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. hospital
7. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. huésped
8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. hospital
15. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. hospital
16. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv
17. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 997
18. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
19. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 182
20. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 478
21. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hospital