hosting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of host.

   The museum is hosting a touring exhibition through the end of summer.

   Hosting visiting scholars allowed the department to broaden its research network.

   Note

   One -ing form does two jobs. After a form of be, it marks something in progress (the museum is hosting an exhibition). On its own as subject or object, it names the activity itself (hosting visiting scholars broadened the network). It carries every sense of the verb, from receiving guests to the Internet sense of running software for remote users, which sits close to the computing service.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The service of running and maintaining a computer system on another party's behalf.

   The company offers hosting for thousands of websites across several data centers.

   Reliable hosting ensures a site stays accessible even during heavy traffic.

   Note

   In computing, the word names a service rather than an act of hospitality. The provider runs and maintains the machines, and the client's site or software lives on them. It behaves mostly as a mass noun: a company offers hosting, and a site needs reliable hosting. It can also be counted when separate arrangements are meant. Behind it stands the Internet sense of the verb host, to run software for a remote user.

3. 3
   nounobsoletecountable

   A battle between opposing armies.

   The chronicle described a fierce hosting in which the king's banner was nearly lost.

   After the hosting ended, the survivors carried their wounded back across the moor.

   Note

   A word for armed conflict that has dropped out of the language. A modern reader will hear hosting first as hospitality or as the computing service, so the battle reading survives only where context forces it: armies, banners, the wounded. Keep it for historical writing or deliberate pastiche. Elsewhere, battle or fight says the same thing without the risk of misreading.

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