# inn

Pronunciation: say "IN" /ɪn/

## Noun

1. A place where travelers can get a room, food and drink, traditionally a country hotel or one that serves mainly as a pub; the word also appears in the names of modern hotels and motels.
   - Simple: A hotel or pub, often an old one, where travelers can stay, eat or drink. Modern hotel chains use the name too.
   - _After a long day on the road, they took a room at a country inn outside town._
   - _Coaching inns once stood every few miles along the old post road._
2. One of the London colleges for students of law and barristers, meaning either the society itself or its buildings.
   - Simple: One of the groups in London for law students and lawyers, or the buildings where they meet.
   - _She joined an Inn of Court in her first year of studying law in London._
   - _The barristers' chambers look out over the gardens of the Inn._

## Noun

3. The town house of a nobleman or other distinguished person. *(dated, British)*
   - Simple: The house in town where a lord or other important person lives.
   - _Whenever Parliament sat, the duke left his country estate and lived with his household at his inn on the Strand._
   - _Servants opened up the earl's inn in London a week before the family arrived from the country._
4. A place of shelter, and so a dwelling, residence, or home. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A place to shelter, or the place where someone lives.

## Verb

5. To stay as a lodger somewhere, or to give lodging or shelter to someone or something. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: An old word meaning to stay somewhere for the night, or to give someone a place to stay.

## Origin

Middle English in or inn goes back to Old English inn, a word for a dwelling, house, chamber, or lodging. Its relatives include Faroese inni ("home") and Icelandic inni, which means a dwelling place, home, or abode.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/inn (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).