hostel

Meanings

Noun

• A commercial overnight lodging place, with dormitory accommodation and shared facilities, especially a youth hostel
• A temporary refuge for the homeless providing a bed and sometimes food
• A small, unendowed college in Oxford or Cambridge.

Verb

• To stay in a hostel during one's travels.
• To lodge (a person) in a hostel.

Origin

• From Middle English hostel, from Old French hostel, ostel, from Late Latin hospitale, from Classical Latin hospitalis itself from hospes + -alis. hotel, and hospital. Obsolete from the 16th to 18th centuries, until it was revived by Walter Scott.