motel
Americannoun
-
motels
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of motel
Compare meaning
How does motel compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
A motel is a place you can stay overnight, with plenty of parking and easy access to a highway. Many motels feature rooms with separate entrances that face a large parking lot. A motel is very much like a hotel — it fact, motels were originally "motor hotels." The first official motel was built in 1925, designed to be an easy, cheap stop on a long car trip. While hotels are often in the middle of cities, motels are usually on a city's outskirts, providing space to park and a quick walk from car to room. The popularity of motels increased through the twentieth century, along with the development of the modern highway system.
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:
Our big annual vacation was driving to Florida and staying in a modest motel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
The interview, filmed in a Philadelphia studio dressed up to resemble a seedy motel in a wink at the laptop scandal, quickly became a viral sensation, generating millions of views.
From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2026
The address she was given turned out to be a "dingy gross motel", but she says she presumed they would be heading out somewhere else.
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
To save money, the four shared one motel room outside of Manhattan in Sussex, N.J, for about $100 a night, and have planned similar accommodations as they travel to Providence, R.I.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 24, 2026
Everything is soft and comfortable, maybe even better than my bed at the motel.
From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy
Under her signature program, the city has spent $82,420 a year for each homeless person it has sheltered in motels.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
According to the indictment, the Hoovers had strongholds over specific hotels and motels in their territory, including the Stadium Inn & Spas.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
One lesson of the pandemic was that hotels and motels mobilized to house the unsheltered were successful in bringing people indoors who were otherwise reluctant to stay in congregate shelters or withstand involuntary hospitalizations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
Neighboring towns looked down on its working-class residents and the beat-up motels along Beach Boulevard, which cleaves the city in half.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2026
The car stole off the interstate, and past the cluster of motels to the north of Eagle Point.
From "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman
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.
