hostel

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A cheap place to stay where you share rooms and facilities with other travellers.

   We booked a bed in a youth hostel near the station.

2. 2
   noun

   A place that gives a bed, and sometimes food, to homeless people.

   The charity runs a hostel for people sleeping on the streets.

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).

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