Other forms: hosted, hosts, hosting
Your host is the person whose house you are in: the one who opens the door, takes your coat and keeps the glasses full. To host is to do that job — you host a dinner, host a party, host two friends who are down for the weekend.
The word scales up without changing shape. A city hosts the Olympics, a university hosts a conference, and a television programme has a host who introduces it and keeps it moving. In biology the host is the animal or plant that something else lives on and feeds from; in computing a server hosts a website, which is where your files actually sit. There is a second host that means a great many of something — a host of problems, a host of small mistakes. Keep the two roles straight: the host is the one giving, the guest is the one receiving.
1nounhomeThe person who has people to their home and looks after them.~11%
“Our host met us at the door with a tray of glasses.”
2verbhostTo hold an event and take care of everyone who comes to it.~35%
“Berlin hosts the conference every spring.”
Patternhost a party / dinner / event · host sb (for the weekend) · play host to · a host and hostess
3nounpresenterThe person who introduces a programme on television or radio and keeps it moving.~34%
“The quiz has a new host this year.”
synonyms: presenter
4nounanimalThe animal or plant that another living thing feeds on and lives in or on.~20%
“A parasite cannot survive long without a host.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 176 sentences found in the wild and placed 153 of them on a sense (23 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Latin hospes covered both sides of the door at once — a host, a guest, a visitor, a stranger — and behind it stands an older compound, *gʰóstipotis, master of guests. English kept both halves and never chose: guest is the same word as host. So is the other host, the one that means an army, which comes from Latin hostis, a foreign enemy. The person arriving at your gate was a visitor or an invader, and the word left the question open.
Middle English
hoste
English, today
host
Built from
From Middle English hoste. From Middle English hoste, from Old French oste (French: hôte), from Latin hospitem, accusative of hospes (“a host, also a sojourner, visitor, guest; hence, a foreigner, a stranger”), from hostipotis, an old compound of hostis and the root of potis, from Proto-Indo-European gʰóstipotis (“master of guests”), from gʰóstis (“stranger, guest, enemy”) and pótis (“owner, master, host, husband”). Used in English since 13th century.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA