Hospitality is the warm treatment of guests: feeding them, giving them a bed, making them feel wanted. The neighbour who has the kettle on before you get your coat off, or a spare room made up for a friend who missed the last train.
It is also the name of a whole industry — hotels, restaurants, bars and catering are the hospitality sector, and hospitality work means jobs in them. At a stadium or a conference, corporate hospitality is the food and drink laid on for clients in a private box. The adjective is hospitable: a hospitable host, and also a hospitable climate. Its opposite, inhospitable, describes places that are hard to survive in, like an inhospitable stretch of coast. Hospitality is uncountable: thank you for your hospitality, never hospitalities.
1nounhospitalityFriendly and generous treatment of guests and visitors.
“We were grateful for their hospitality after the long drive.”
synonyms: welcome
2nounindustryThe industry made up of hotels, restaurants, bars and catering.
“She has worked in hospitality since she was nineteen.”
The Latin word hospes meant guest and host at once — one word for both sides of the door. From it came hospitālis, hospitable, and hospitālitās, which reached English through Old French. It replaced the native English cumlīþnes, a word nobody has needed for centuries.
Latin
hospitālitās — hospitality
Old French
hospitalité
Middle English
hospitalite
English, today
hospitality
Built from
From Middle English hospitalite, from Old French hospitalité (modern French hospitalité), from Latin hospitālitās (“hospitality”), from hospitālis (“hospitable”), from hospes (“guest", "host”). Displaced native cumlīþnes.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA