hostel
Americannoun
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hostels
plural
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Also called youth hostel. an inexpensive, supervised lodging place for young people on bicycle trips, hikes, etc.
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(formerly) a residence for the exclusive use of boarding Indigenous students, separate from but close to any of a series of day schools in northern Canada that were operated or funded by the federal government and were themselves open to students of any ethnicity.
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British. a student residence at a university or boarding school.
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an inn.
verb (used without object)
noun
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a building providing overnight accommodation, as for the homeless, etc
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See youth hostel
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a supervised lodging house for nurses, workers, etc
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archaic another word for hostelry
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of hostel
First recorded in 1200–50; Middle English (h)ostel, from Old French, from Late Latin hospitāle “guest room”; see hospital
Explanation
If you backpack around Europe and are traveling on a budget, you will probably want to stay in a hostel, an inexpensive lodging made typically for young travelers willing to sleep in dorms. The word hostel comes from the Latin hospitale meaning "inn, large house." Think of a hostel as an inn for students or young people. Often you can stay in one of these places for relatively little money because multiple beds are in one room and you share the bathroom with other guests. If you want to meet traveling students, you could try opening a youth hostel in your home town.
Vocabulary lists containing hostel
Some Tricky Homonyms
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To All the Boys I've Loved Before
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Born a Crime
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Since then, I’ve corresponded with Nimblewill Nomad, the record holder and caretaker of a hostel at Flagg Mountain, the start of the Pinhoti Trail in Alabama.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2026
Anderson currently has a room in a hostel but says it is difficult to sleep when it is warm at night and he is out on his feet all day.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
Australians Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles, both 19, were among six people who died at a hostel in Vang Vieng in November 2024.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
Nearby, a woman wept as she embraced a framed picture of her deceased relatives, while another family scattered rose petals at the ruins of the hostel in honour of their son.
From Barron's ● Jun. 12, 2026
And, still later, the news spread around campus of a strike by lecturers, and students gathered in the hostel foyer, bristling with the known and the unknown.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
They were soon joined by young, adventurous backpackers, who filled hostels and traveled on the cheap.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
But after not hearing from her for two days, dad Nic frantically rang around hostels where she had been staying, before locating her in the intensive care unit of a Goa hospital.
From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026
The first U.S. case of Andes virus actually occurred in January 2018, in a woman who had stayed in cabins and youth hostels in the Andes region of Argentina and Chile.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 14, 2026
However, Alan disputed this and said the people he saw in hostels had been "trapped in that same position for 12 years".
From BBC ● May 4, 2026
With blueprints in hand he tramped through the Japanese community—to hostels, trailer courts, other housing projects like ours— trying to find families who would invest in it.
From "Farewell to Manzanar" by Jeanne Houston
Her parental father and his family retinue, large and small, married and unmarried, were hosteled on the 12th floor of the Waldorf.
From Epistles from Pap: Letters from the man known as 'The Will Rogers of Indiana' by Douglas (Douglas N.) Hay
Created last year, the place represents a subtrend in haute hosteling: an offsite annex of swish private rooms set up by an established traditional hostel — in this case the Violeta Hostel.
From New York Times ● Apr. 26, 2013
When “Should I Stay or Should I Go” blasted from the sound system, it summarized my ambivalence toward the hostel — and about the haute hosteling concept in general.
From New York Times ● Apr. 26, 2013
In fact he devoted a whole chapter of his guide to hostelling.
From BBC ● Apr. 2, 2018
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
