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.
Past L.A. locations have included buzzy restaurant Craig’s and the West Hollywood Edition hotel on the Sunset Strip.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
Across the road from his shop is a hotel that houses homeless people, one of three such places within a very small area.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
A police spokesperson said the incident they were investigating occurred at a hotel on Wellington Parade in the early hours of Sunday morning.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
Plus, Bunny Mellon’s influence as a tastemaker for the elite, and the viral feud between a luxury hotel and a content creator.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
I knew Aunt Melissa managed a hotel, and before moving here, I assumed she ran an upscale resort.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
The outlines of this story are familiar, but Ms. Rogoyska sees it anew through the Hotel Lutetia.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
I ended up leaving with the Hotel Mar-a-Lago shirt, which Bill insisted I take as a souvenir of my visit, refusing my money when I pulled out my wallet.
From Slate ● Aug. 14, 2026
Hotel occupancy was down three percent in the quarter to end-June, TUI said, an improvement from the six percent fall seen in the previous six months.
From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026
“I’ve been walking around with a question mark over my head,” Hopkins, 88, said during a recent interview at the Hotel Bel-Air.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026
Dr. van Heerden, Mother, Sister Gladys, and Nhamo were sitting in the dining room of the Mtoroshanga Hotel.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
Ms. Rogoyska judges that the Lutetia was the only one of Paris’s grand hotels offered the “redemption” of being put in the service of survivors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
Second-quarter earnings so far might be among the strongest on record — but companies like retailers and hotels haven’t been major contributors to the blowout performance.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 16, 2026
For them, Road Scholar now offers stays in four- and five-star hotels on some trips.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
Hundreds of buildings — hotels, apartment blocks, mixed-use structures — collapsed or were damaged beyond repair.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
“Why would we have hotels, when we don’t have visitors?”
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
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.
