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.
The incident took place at England returned from a training session to their hotel on a bus.
From BBC ● Jul. 16, 2026
Schwartz said Nike could have tracked social-media traffic and hotel bookings in host cities in the weeks before the tournament to gauge demand more precisely.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 16, 2026
Most of the first episode gives us Lucky on the run, getting out of the hotel and out of Vegas, and across the tops of a field of big rigs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
The world's tallest unoccupied skyscraper was meant to boast a rooftop pool and a luxury hotel after completion, but instead it has stood deserted in the Chinese port city of Tianjin for years.
From Barron's ● Jul. 15, 2026
He returned to Maggie’s hotel suite the next day with some blunt advice: “This is no life for you, my child.”
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
The British Columbia Hotel Association says that while final booking figures are yet to be confirmed, June and July were "pacing well behind previous years", despite Vancouver hosting seven of the games in Canada.
From BBC ● Jul. 16, 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
In the so-called Stadium District, the Anthem Hotel saw even greater numbers of tourists than they had initially expected for the tournament, including both domestic and international guests.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
The louche but witty “Murder at the Hotel Orient” seems to occupy a subgenre all its own.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
Eventually, they arrived at a place that neither Leonardo nor Lisa ever knew: the Hotel Tripoli-Italia.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
Det Ch Insp Rob Burns, who worked on the investigation, said he would then utilise luxury hotels and conference suits to hold seminars that were "very professional".
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
I didn’t realize that optimizing my travel points meant picking up a new hobby: constantly comparing prices on travel portals, which is where you redeem your credit-card points for plane tickets, hotels and experiences.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 14, 2026
Urban and suburban landscapes provide ideal conditions, allowing Hierodula mantises to use structures such as insect hotels as productive hunting sites.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 11, 2026
It’s time to take stock of your loyalty status with airlines and hotels.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
“With not enough money and with houses and hotels that fall over. I think it’s perfect!”
From "Shouting at the Rain" by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
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.
