Other forms: guesthouses
A guesthouse is a private house that takes paying visitors. Stay in a guesthouse, a small guesthouse, run a guesthouse.
It is smaller and more personal than a hotel and usually larger than a bed and breakfast, though the line between them is blurred and local licensing decides which word a place may use. On a large estate, a guesthouse is a separate house for visitors.
1nounguesthouseA private house that takes paying visitors.
“We stayed at a small guesthouse by the sea, where the owner cooked us breakfast.”
guesthouse is a lodging.
Old English gesthus, guest house. Guest comes from a Germanic root that also gave Latin hostis, a stranger.
Proto-Germanic
*gastihūsą
Old Norse
gesthús — guesthouse; guest-chamber
Proto-West Germanic
*gastihūs
Old English
gæsthūs
Middle English
gest hous
English, today
guesthouse
Built from
From Middle English gest hous, gistenehus, gystehuse, gesthus, partly from Old English gæsthūs, ġesthūs (“guesthouse, hostel; guest-chamber”), from Proto-West Germanic gastihūs; and partly from Old Norse gesthús (“guesthouse; guest-chamber”); both from Proto-Germanic gastihūsą, corresponding to guest + house.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA