a commercial establishment offering lodging to travelers and sometimes to permanent residents, and often having restaurants, meeting rooms, stores, etc., that are available to the general public.
a word used in communications to represent the letter H.
Military. Hotel, the NATO name for a class of nuclear-powered Soviet submarines armed with single-warhead ballistic missiles: in service with the Soviet Navy 1959–91.
Hotel, house, inn, tavern refer to establishments for the lodging or entertainment of travelers and others. Hotel is the common word, suggesting a more or less commodious establishment with up-to-date appointments, although this is not necessarily true: the best hotel in the city; a cheap hotel near the docks. The word house is often used in the name of a particular hotel, the connotation being wealth and luxury: the Parker House; the Palmer House. Inn suggests a place of homelike comfort and old-time appearance or ways; it is used for quaint or archaic effect in the names of some public houses and hotels in the U.S.: the Pickwick Inn; the Wayside Inn. A tavern, like the English public house, is a house where liquor is sold for drinking on the premises; until recently it was archaic or dialectal in the U.S., but has been revived to substitute for saloon, which had unfavorable connotations: Taverns are required to close by two o'clock in the morning. The word has also been used in the sense of inn, especially in New England, ever since Colonial days: Wiggins Tavern.
First recorded in 1670–80; from French hôtel, Old French hostel hostel
How does hotel compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
When you're on vacation, one place you can stay for a nightly fee is a hotel. Most hotels provide accommodations for sleeping, with minibars, pools, and ice machines to keep you entertained. While in Australia and New Zealand a hotel can also be a bar or a pub, most English-speakers recognize this word as the equivalent of an inn. Simple hotels give you a bed to sleep in and a bathroom to use, while fancier hotels might have beautiful furnishings, separate sitting rooms, swimming pools, and cafes. In the 1760s, hotel was defined as "an inn of the better sort."
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As a spotlight shone over him, Styles made a moving speech, in which he honoured Liam Payne, who died two years ago after falling from a hotel balcony in Argentina.
From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2026
Members of Evans’s family, who own a hotel group in San Diego, also wrote letters of support for Holmes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
According to security sources and some of the men by the hotel pool, paramilitaries in the country include Ukrainians, Israelis, South Africans and Algerians.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026
The hotel hosts special trips during the festival, led by a local astronomer, and runs visits to various sites and events across the park.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
Then she waited, ready to board whatever ship of luxury the hotel had found for her, and the sooner, the better.
From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood
On later visits, Hitler stayed at the Hotel Elephant, which, located by the market square, was more convenient for haranguing the public.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
Gary Simms, a Cowbridge local, also had a picture with the actor when he saw him in the Bear Hotel on Sunday evening, the night before filming.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026
It has recently expanded its hotels business, developing The Bedford Hotel in Belfast and buying The Waterfoot in Derry.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
The villa, bookable from around $35,780 a night, is an extension of the 74-room Hotel Maçakizi, a Turkish Riviera fixture since the late 1970s.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
While the Barnum Hotel was teeming with life, I was enjoying it with a particularly noisy quartet of rabble-rousers.
From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan
The reading reflected increasing prices for services, things like airfares, hotels, truck rentals, and heating and electricity.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 14, 2026
But the city’s hotels only got a 1% bump in occupancy, according to a report published this week by Hospitality Education and Research Organization, a project of the Hotel Assn. of Los Angeles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026
Chaos ensued: passengers told the BBC they were stranded on platforms for hours, with some having to book hotels for the night.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026
Big jeers to hotels where front-desk clerks greet you not with a warm hello, but a rote, “ID and credit card, please.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
The hotels are all in competition to see who can get their guests from their rooms to the casino faster.
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
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