hotel

Definitions

hotel is the French descendant of Latin hospitāle ('guest-house'): hospitāle → Old French hostel → French hôtel → English hotel. The 's' you still hear in hostel dropped out, leaving the circumflex in French hôtel as its trace. Same root as hospital and hostel — all three are 'places that receive guests.'

Why It Means This

hotel, hospital, and hostel are triplets from one Latin word. hospital came in directly and kept the Latin look; hostel and hotel both came through Old French hostel, then hotel smoothed away the 's.' That dropped 's' is why the French spelling is hôtel — the little hat over the 'o' marks where a letter used to be. So next time you see hôtel, you are seeing the missing 's' of hostel.

Common Collocations

• 1.book a hotel订酒店
• 2.luxury hotel豪华酒店
• 3.hotel room酒店房间
• 4.check into a hotel办理酒店入住
• 5.five-star hotel五星级酒店

Example Sentences

• 1.

  We booked a hotel near the beach for the weekend.

• 2.

  The hotel offers free breakfast and a swimming pool.

• 3.

  She checked into the hotel just after midnight.

Easily Confused

hotel vs hostel — both are lodging and share the same root, but a hotel offers private rooms and full service; a hostel offers cheap, shared dormitory-style rooms, popular with young travelers. Pay more for privacy → hotel; share a bunk to save money → hostel.