hotel

[ hoh-tel ]

noun

1. a commercial establishment offering lodging to travelers and sometimes to permanent residents, and often having restaurants, meeting rooms, stores, etc., that are available to the general public.

   Synonyms: motel, guesthouse, hostel, hostelry

2. a word used in communications to represent the letter H.
3. Hotel, Military. the NATO name for a class of nuclear-powered Soviet submarines armed with single-warhead ballistic missiles: in service with the Soviet Navy 1959–91.

Hotel

¹

/ həʊˈtɛl /

noun

1. communications a code word for the letter h

hotel

²

/ həʊˈtɛl /

noun

1. a commercially run establishment providing lodging and usually meals for guests, and often containing a public bar

Other Words From

• ho·tel·less adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of hotel¹

First recorded in 1670–80; from French hôtel, Old French hostel hostel

Word History and Origins

Origin of hotel¹

C17: from French hôtel, from Old French hostel; see hostel

Synonym Study

Hotel, house, inn, tavern refer to establishments for the lodging or entertainment of travelers and others. Hotel is the common word, suggesting a more or less commodious establishment with up-to-date appointments, although this is not necessarily true: the best hotel in the city; a cheap hotel near the docks. The word house is often used in the name of a particular hotel, the connotation being wealth and luxury: the Parker House; the Palmer House. Inn suggests a place of homelike comfort and old-time appearance or ways; it is used for quaint or archaic effect in the names of some public houses and hotels in the U.S.: the Pickwick Inn; the Wayside Inn. A tavern, like the English public house, is a house where liquor is sold for drinking on the premises; until recently it was archaic or dialectal in the U.S., but has been revived to substitute for saloon, which had unfavorable connotations: Taverns are required to close by two o'clock in the morning. The word has also been used in the sense of inn, especially in New England, ever since Colonial days: Wiggins Tavern.

Example Sentences

This caused him considerable embarrassment when, at the 1999 Labour conference, he used his ministerial car - a Jaguar - for a 200-yard journey back to his hotel.

From BBC

Doane Liu, executive director of the City Tourism Department, warned the council the report understated the impact the proposed increases to the minimum wage would have on the prices of hotel room rates.

From Los Angeles Times

She wrote in her memoir, she stepped onto her hotel balcony in Las Vegas and looked down.

From Salon

The number of hotels being used to house asylum seekers has risen by seven since the general election, the government has disclosed.

From BBC

In addition to considering a single-family home, the research also examined how well the technology would work in the lobby of a small hotel, a medium-size office building, and hospital patient rooms.

From Science Daily

Related Words

• hostel
• house
• inn
• lodging
• motel
• resort
• tavern