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.
For a long time, Alex says she tried to dismiss what happened, but she now believes the hotel encounter had been "all planned out".
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
But hotel construction, combined with overfishing and pollution, is compounding threats already posed by climate to coral.
From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026
Recently, cookbook author and food-world oracle Alison Roman gave Loonen her social-media stamp of approval after discovering it at Two Bunch Palms hotel in Desert Hot Springs, Calif.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
He frequently speaks about his humble beginnings as the son of a bartender and a hotel maid.
From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026
But Aunt Kitty had other plans, and after we sat down with Mr. Pinkerton at his Philadelphia hotel, I learned what scheming she had in store.
From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan
They met at his penthouse in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood, at a private back room in a bar in North Beach and at the W Hotel in Los Angeles, she writes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
In a tribute on its Facebook page, Breeze Hill Bar, Eatery and Hotel, where Lucy worked, said she was "exceptionally good at looking after our customers, many of whom will miss her lots".
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
She describes a “popular annual cocktail buffet at the Hay Adams Hotel on the rooftop overlooking the White House” on the night of Trump’s UFC cage fight on the White House lawn.
From Salon ● Jul. 21, 2026
Rolando Tamayo, the owner of a newly opened Cuban bar just south of downtown Curitiba, said he had never imagined leaving home until he took a job as a manager of Havana’s luxurious Hotel Nacional.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
The trip to the Uffizi must have been even more stressful than the walk to the Hotel Tripoli-Italia.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
Much of the overtime money the department spent went instead toward preparing for unrest, monitoring protests and vigils, guarding hotels housing federal agents, and managing the public response to federal violence.
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026
At Rosewood’s three hotels located throughout New Zealand, the chefs honor this ethically sourced ethos, working with local purveyors and farmers to source indigenous ingredients like beach spinach, fern fronds and abalone.
From Salon ● Jul. 26, 2026
Citywide, Inside Safe has moved more than 6,000 people into hotels, motels and other types of interim housing since Bass took office in December 2022.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026
A few old-school hotels are hellbent on keeping the circus going.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Geyer knew what to look for in Detroit and, with the assistance of another police detective, once again began a patient canvass of hotels and boardinghouses.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
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.
