hotel

American  

[hoh-tel] / hoʊˈtɛl /

noun

1. 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.

   Synonyms:

   motel, guesthouse, hostel, hostelry

2. a word used in communications to represent the letter H.

3. 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 ¹ British  

/ həʊˈtɛl /

noun

1. communications a code word for the letter h

---

hotel ² British  

/ həʊˈtɛl /

noun

1. a commercially run establishment providing lodging and usually meals for guests, and often containing a public bar

---

Related Words

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.

Other Word Forms

• hotelless adjective

Etymology

Origin of hotel

First recorded in 1670–80; from French hôtel, Old French hostel hostel

Compare meaning

How does hotel compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• motel vs. hotel

Example Sentences

The economic impact of fewer Canadian visitors in 2025 affects mostly border states that depend heavily on people driving across the border for retail, restaurants, casinos and short-stay hotels.

From Salon

"I'm too poor to be kidnapped," said the woman checking us in to our hotel.

From BBC

Tapping a vast ecosystem of parts suppliers and engineering talent, they are starting to produce humanoid robots at scale and actively introducing them into real-life scenarios in factories, hotels and offices.

From The Wall Street Journal

The worst time I had was always when I was alone, before the game in the hotel or when my missus or my family were not around.

From BBC

Volunteers with the local tourism board waited on the platform, guiding passengers to the town’s shops, restaurants and hotels.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• hostel
• house
• inn
• lodging
• motel
• resort
• tavern