hospital

Forms

hospital m (plural hospitais)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote espital, spital, hospital and esprital.^[2][3][4] Cunha also records espirital in the 14th century.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin hospitāle (“guesthouse, hospice”), written Old Galician-Portuguese espital and Old Galician-Portuguese spital as well as Old Galician-Portuguese hospital in the oldest texts.^[4][3][5][1] The Latin noun is the adjective hospitālis (“of a guest, hospitable”) used on its own, short for “house for guests”; the adjective is formed from hospes (“host; guest”) with -ālis.^[3][6][1][7]

Nascentes calls the word a remade form of the old word Old Galician-Portuguese hostal.^[8] Wiktionary gives as its inherited doublet hospedal, which Houaiss records only from 1817–1819 as an adjective “of lodging”.^[1][9]

The learned word is Spanish hospital, French hôpital and Italian ospedale.^[10][11][1] The popular outcomes of the Latin word are Spanish hostal, Catalan hostal and Occitan ostal “house, inn”, and Old French ostel, modern hôtel.^[12][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

R. Lorenzo's chronology quotes a document of 1214 with a dezima o prior do espital “the tithe, the prior of the hospital”, one of 1259 with por nome du espital, and one of 1261 that alternates hospital and spital.^[2] The word then meant a religious house that lodged pilgrims, travellers and the poor.^[8][13] Nascentes notes that it later took in the poor sick as well.^[8][13]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) glosses the word with Latin xenodochium “guesthouse” and proseucha.^[14] Folqman (1755) gives valetudinarium publicum, a public infirmary.^[15] Morais (1789) defines it as a house where the sick poor are treated, and also where guests and poor travellers are lodged.^[13] Figueiredo (1899) has only the building where the sick are taken in and treated.^[16]

Houaiss records an adjective hospital “hospitable, charitable” from the 16th century, now obsolete.^[4][17][16] Vieira and Figueiredo still list it.^[4][17][16] The phrase hospital de sangue was a field hospital for the wounded of a campaign.^[4][5]

The word passed into Kabuverdianu as ospital, into Tetum as ospitál, and several languages of India borrowed it from Portuguese.^[1]

Timeline

• 1214 – o prior do espital in a Galician-Portuguese document.^[2]
• 1261 – a document alternates hospital and spital.^[2]
• 1348 – espital in a Galician document.^[18]
• 14th century – espirital is recorded.^[3]
• 1513 – hospital in the Livro dos Mártires.^[19]
• 16th century – first record of the adjective “hospitable”.^[4]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses it as xenodochium.^[14]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as a house where the sick poor are treated.^[13]
• 1899 – Figueiredo marks the adjective as obsolete.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hospital; an establishment where sick or injured people are admitted and treated: Levaram-no ao hospital de ambulância.^{[4][5][20][1]}
2. (figurative) A house with many sick people in it.^[21][22]

Adjective

1. (obsolete) hospitable, charitable (caridoso).^[4][5][6]

Related words

• hóspede
• hospedal
• hospitalidade
• Latin hospes
• Spanish hostal

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. espital
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. hospital
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. hospital
5. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. hospital
6. ^ a b Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. hospital
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. hospitālis
8. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. hospital
9. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. hospedal
10. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. hospitalis
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. hôpital
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4198
13. ^ a b c d Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 686
14. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. hospital
15. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. hospital
16. ^ a b c d Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 711
17. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 3, 990
18. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. hospital
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. hospital
20. ^ Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. hospital
21. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. hospital
22. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5023