hosts

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of host.

   The hosts spent the whole week preparing rooms for the visiting families.

   Mosquitoes seek out warm-blooded hosts to feed on at dusk.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs: the same form is both this plural and the present-tense verb. As a noun, the plural covers every kind of host: people who entertain guests, venues that provide a facility, organizations that run an event, presenters of a show, and computers attached to a network. A determiner or number in front (the hosts, two hosts) marks the noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of host.

   The museum hosts traveling exhibitions throughout the year.

   He hosts visiting scholars in the spare apartment above the garage.

   Note

   The present-tense verb for a singular subject, and that subject is as often an institution or a machine as a person: a museum hosts exhibitions, a server hosts software for remote users. An obsolete intransitive sense ran the other way. It meant to lodge at an inn, so it described the guest's side of the arrangement rather than the host's.

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