hostel

From Middle English hostel, from Old French hostel, ostel, from Late Latin hospitale (“hospice”), from Classical Latin hospitalis (“hospitable”) itself from hospes (“host”) + -alis (“-al”). Doublet of hotel and hospital. Not in use from late 17th c. (in the usual sense from mid 16th c.) to 1808, when it was revived by Walter Scott in his poem Marmion (see the quotation).^[1]

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈhɑstəl/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈhɒstəl/
• (Indic) IPA^(key): /ˈhɔsʈəl/, /hɔsˈʈɛl/, /ˈhosʈəl/, /hɵsˈʈɛl/
• Homophone: hostile (one pronunciation)
• Rhymes: -ɒstəl

hostel (plural hostels)

1. A commercial overnight lodging place, with dormitory accommodation and shared facilities, especially a youth hostel.

   a rundown hostel

   • 1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “Canto Third. The Hostel, or Inn.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC, stanza XXVIII, pages 161–162:

     The rest, around the hostel fire, / Their drowsy limbs recline; / For pillow, underneath each head, / The quiver and the targe were laid: / Deep slumbering on the hostel floor, / Oppressed with toil and ale, / they snore: […]

2. (not US) A temporary refuge for the homeless providing a bed and sometimes food.
3. (obsolete) A small, unendowed college in Oxford or Cambridge.
   • 1577, Raphaell Holinshed, The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Harrison, →OCLC:

     There are also in Oxford certeine hostels or hals, which may rightwell be called by the names of colleges , if it were not that there is more libertie in them , than is to be seen in the other

4. (obsolete) A public hotel.
   • 1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 135:

     Immediately at hand was a small, mean public-house - one of those dingy establishments that seem to express, by their morbid and retiring appearance, a certain anxiety to escape the eye of the police - and into the parlour of this hostel Quin promptly led the way.

5. (South Africa, South Asia) A university or school dormitory, a place of accommodation for students.
6. This term needs a definition. Please help out and add a definition, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
   • 2025 April 21, Peter Stanford, “Pope Francis obituary”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     The excitement was palpable for believers and non-believers alike. Next, Francis declined to move into the gilded papal apartment vacated by his predecessor. Instead he was going to remain in the small room in the Santa Marta hostel in the Vatican where he had stayed during the conclave.

• See also Thesaurus:lodging place

• host
• hostler
• hotel

• → Hindi: हॉस्टल (hŏsṭal)
• → Japanese: ホステル (hosuteru)
• → Korean: 호스텔 (hoseutel)
• → Oromo: hosteela
• → Tamil: ஹாஸ்டல் (hāsṭal)

• hospice

hostel (third-person singular simple present hostels, present participle (US) hosteling or (UK) hostelling, simple past and past participle (US) hosteled or (UK) hostelled)

1. (intransitive) To stay in a hostel during one's travels.
2. (transitive) To lodge (a person) in a hostel.

• shotel, Tholes, Esholt, s—thole, Holste, hôtels, helots, tholes, Lhotse, hotels, loseth, Holtes, s--thole, s**thole

• IPA^(key): [ˈɦostl̩]
• IPA^(key): [ˈɦostɛl]

hostel m inan

1. hostel

From English hostel.

hostel n (singular definite hostellet, plural indefinite hostels)

1. hostel

• “hostel” in Den Danske Ordbog

• vandrerhjem

Borrowed from English hostel.

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: hos‧tel

hostel n (plural hostels, no diminutive)

1. hostel, youth hostel

   Synonym: jeugdherberg

Internationalism.

• (Standard Indonesian) IPA^(key): /ˈhostəl/ [ˈhos.t̪əl]
• Rhymes: -ostəl
• Syllabification: hos‧tel

hostel (plural hostel-hostel)

1. hostel

• “hostel”, in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia [Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language] (in Indonesian), Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016

Borrowed from Old French hostel, ostel, from Latin hospitāle. Doublet of hospital.

• hostele, hostell, hostelle, hostil, ostel, ostell, osteyl

• IPA^(key): /ɔsˈtɛːl/, /ɔsˈtɛl/, /ˈɔstɛl/

hostel (plural hosteles)

1. A hostel or guesthouse; accommodation.
2. Fun or diversion; entertaining activities.
3. A dwelling or house; a place of residence.
4. A household; a domestic establishment.
5. The owner or manager of a hostel.

• hostelen
• hostelerie
• hostiler

• English: hostel (see there for further descendants)
• Scots: hostel
• → Middle Cornish: ostel
  • Cornish: ostel

• “hostē̆l, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 7 August 2018.

hostel

1. alternative form of hostelen

From Old French ostel.

hostel m (plural hostels)

1. shelter; living quarters; place to stay
2. hotel; hostel; inn (establishment offering rooms for hire)

• maistre d'hostel

• French: hôtel (see there for further descendants)

hostel oblique singular, m (oblique plural hosteaus or hosteax or hostiaus or hostiax or hostels, nominative singular hosteaus or hosteax or hostiaus or hostiax or hostels, nominative plural hostel)

1. alternative form of ostel

Borrowed from English hostel. Doublet of hotel and szpital.

• IPA^(key): /ˈxɔs.tɛl/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔstɛl
• Syllabification: hos‧tel

hostel m inan (diminutive hostelik)

1. hostel (a commercial overnight lodging place)
2. hostel (a temporary refuge)

   Synonym: schronisko

• hostel in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• hostel in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Unadapted borrowing from English hostel.

hostel m (plural hostels)

1. hostel

   Synonym: albergue

• “hostel”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

Borrowed from English hostel.

• IPA^(key): /osˈtel/ [osˈt̪el]
• Rhymes: -el
• Syllabification: hos‧tel

hostel m (plural hosteles)

1. hostel