hotel

Forms

hotel n (plural hoteluri)^[1] Older and rarer forms are otel and the plural hotele.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French hôtel, as every dictionary says.^[2][3][5][6] The French word is inherited, through Old French ostel, from Late Latin hospitāle (“guest house”), the noun use of hospitālis (“of a guest or host”).^[1] The Latin adjective is formed on hospes (“guest, host”).^[1]

spital “hospital” goes back to the same Latin word by another route, so the two are doublets.^[1][7] Gabinschi notes that the French word spread across Europe, to German Hotel, English hotel and Russian отель (otelʹ).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record in our sources is Costinescu's dictionary of 1870, under the form otel: a large house of a wealthy person, a building for some public use, a large inn.^[8] Antonescu's dictionary of 1875 has otelu “hôtel”.^[9] MDA2 dates the spelling hotel only from CADE (1926).^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 19th century the word kept the French sense of a grand town house beside that of a large inn.^[8] Barcianu sent otel to the Latinist ospel.^[10] Scriban, still writing otel, called it a better inn, where the more refined travellers stayed.^[11] The spelling with ⟨h⟩, after French, is the one CADE and the later dictionaries use, and otel is now only a variant.^[6][2] Compounds such as hotel-restaurant followed the French model.^[12]

Timeline

• 1870 – otel in Costinescu's dictionary.^[8]
• 1875 – otelu in Antonescu's dictionary.^[9]
• 1926 – hotel in CADE, MDA2's first record.^[3][6]
• 1967 – hotel-restaurant in the press.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hotel: a large building with many furnished rooms or flats let, usually by the day, to travellers.^[2][3]
2. (rare, by extension) A building with many rooms, able to take in many guests.^[3]

Related words

• spital
• oaspete
• hotelier
• French hôtel

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 481
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1088
4. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 470
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. hotel
6. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. hotel
7. ^ a b Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 163
8. ^ a b c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 223
9. ^ a b Antonescu, G. M. (1875), Dictionariu romanu-francesu, Bucuresci: Typografia Curții (Lucrători Associați), p. 216
10. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 446
11. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 916
12. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. hotel