Hostry

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An old-fashioned word for an inn or other place that offers food and lodging to travelers
2. An archaic term for a hostelry, a public house where travelers could eat, drink and stay the night
3. A dated name for an inn, a building where weary wayfarers could find a meal and a bed for the night

Etymology: "Hostry" is an old word for an inn, and its history runs through a word that also gave English "host" in its sense of one who receives guests. It came into English from Old French "hosterie," a term for a lodging house or inn, which was itself built on "hoste," the French form of the same Latin root behind "host." The inn and the innkeeper were thus named by the same stem: the person who received travellers and the building where they were received shared one family of words. The more surprising link lies in its doublet, "osteria," the Italian word for a tavern or simple eatery. Both "hostry" and "osteria" descend from the same Latin ancestor, but they reached their modern forms by separate routes, one through French into English and the other directly into Italian. Two words from one root, travelling different roads, ended up naming the same kind of place.

Synonyms: hostelry, inn, tavern