inn

C2+ Topic:Food & Drink

US /ɪn/ UK /ɪn/ See IPA manual

Homophones

in /ɪn/

Minimal pairs

Sounds like een /ɪ/ vs /iː/

Meanings

1

noun
a small establishment providing lodging, food, and drink to travelers

They stopped at a roadside inn to rest the horses and dine.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a small establishment... tavern hostelry lodge hotel hostelauberge

Word family

Derived forms innkeeper

Related forms in

Simplified etymology

Inn is an Old English word related to in and originally meant any dwelling or lodging. Medieval translators also used it for Latin hospitium, a residence for students, a sense preserved in the Inns of Court. Its modern meaning, a house providing travellers with lodging and refreshment, developed in the late Middle Ages.

Etymology

From Old English inn ('dwelling, lodging, house'), originally a noun use of inne ('within'), from Proto-Germanic *innai. Sense narrowed to a public lodging house in Middle English.

inn Old English *innai Proto-Germanic

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Food & Drink

External links

# inn

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ɪn/
**IPA (UK):** /ɪn/

## Meanings
1. a small establishment providing lodging, food, and drink to travelers

## Examples
- They stopped at a roadside inn to rest the horses and dine.

## Synonyms
- tavern
- hostelry
- lodge
- hotel
- hostel
- auberge

## Derived Forms
- innkeeper

## Related Forms
- in

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: inn
- Root: *innai

## Etymology
From Old English inn ('dwelling, lodging, house'), originally a noun use of inne ('within'), from Proto-Germanic *innai. Sense narrowed to a public lodging house in Middle English.

## AI Etymology
inn comes from Old English inn ('dwelling, lodging, house'), originally a noun use of inne ('within'), from Proto-Germanic *innai. Sense narrowed to a public lodging house in Middle English. The history explains the modern form through the named earlier word or formation, without requiring a separate speculative ancestry. In present English, the noun sense is "a small establishment providing lodging, food, and drink to travelers", so the historical development ends in a clearly identifiable modern dictionary use. The same base also appears in related forms such as in, and in derivatives such as innkeeper. Its semantic neighborhood includes tavern, hostelry, lodge, and hotel, which helps locate the modern sense without adding a separate etymological claim. The named historical forms include Old English inn and Proto-Germanic *innai.

## Topics
- Food & Drink

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