DictionaryAI

hospital

SayHOS-pi-tuhl/ˈhɑs.pɪ.tl̩//ˈhɒs.pɪ.tl̩/

Pluralhospitals

4 meanings of hospital

Practice

  1. 1
    medical centernouncountable
    A large medical facility, often a multi-story building, where seriously ill or injured patients receive extensive medical or surgical treatment.

    Surgeons at the regional hospital operated through the night.

    After the crash, he spent three weeks in the hospital recovering from his injuries.

    UsageAmericans usually say in the hospital, British speakers in hospital: rushed to hospital.

    Similarinfirmary

  2. 2
    charity homenouncountable
    A charitable institution that provides long-term residence and care for its residents, such as an almshouse.

    The charity founded a hospital where retired soldiers could live out their days.

    Many medieval hospitals took in the elderly and the destitute rather than the sick.

    Similaralmshouse

    Note

    Here a hospital is a foundation that houses people for the long term rather than a place that cures them. Foundling hospital is the classic collocation, for an institution that took in abandoned children and educated them. In older texts, read the word with care: a hospital of this kind may have had no doctors at all.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

  3. 3
    nounobsoletecountable
    A place where people could find lodging, staying for a night or longer.
    Note

    A guest-house meaning that sits closest to the word's Latin root, hospes, "host, guest," and explains why hotel and hostel are its doublets. In Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590), travelers choose a riverside castle as "that evenings hospitale": a single night's shelter, with no sickness involved.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

    • The lodging sense reflects the word's ancestry in Latin hospes, meaning host or guest. en.wiktionary.org
    • Hotel and hostel are doublets of hospital. en.wiktionary.org
    • Edmund Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene, whose first three books were first published in 1590. en.wikisource.org
    • The narrator describes travelers choosing a riverside castle for evening lodging; the quoted phrase has only its u/v spelling modernized. en.wikisource.org

Less common meaning

  1. 4
    adjectiveobsolete
    Friendly, welcoming, and generous toward guests.
    At last the Ocean, that hospital friend to the wretched, opened her capacious arms to receive him; and he instantly resolved to accept her kind invitation.
    1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones
    Note

    Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) still uses it: the Ocean is "that hospital friend to the wretched", opening her arms to a despairing hero. Hospitable now does its work, and the old adjective risks being misread as the noun used attributively, so that a hospital friend sounds like someone met on a ward.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • Henry Fielding wrote Tom Jones, first published in 1749. en.wikisource.org
    • The text reads “that hospitable friend to the wretched,” not “hospital.” These are the narrator's words. gutenberg.org
    • The Ocean's welcoming arms figuratively offer the distressed hero a refuge. en.wikisource.org

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of hospital apart? Answer 4 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

It comes from Middle English hospital, from Old French hospital, from Late Latin hospitāle meaning "hospice, shelter, guesthouse." This came from Latin hospitālis ("hospitable") and ultimately from hospes ("host, guest"). It is a doublet of hotel and hostel.

Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

  • Hospital comes through Middle English hospital and Old French hospital from Late Latin hospitāle. en.wiktionary.org
  • Late Latin hospitāle meant hospice, shelter or guesthouse and derived from Latin hospitālis, meaning hospitable. en.wiktionary.org
  • Hospitālis derives from hospes, meaning host or guest. en.wiktionary.org
  • Hospital, hotel and hostel are doublets. en.wiktionary.org