Hostile means openly unfriendly, treating you as an enemy. A hostile crowd, hostile questioning, hostile environment.
The openness is the point — hostile is not merely unfriendly, it is unfriendly on display. A hostile takeover goes over a board's head, and hostile environment is a term of art in employment law and in immigration policy. Note that the Latin hostis means an enemy, and originally a stranger.
1adjectivehostileOpenly unfriendly, treating you as an enemy.
“The crowd was hostile, shouting and throwing things at the speaker.”
synonyms: antagonistic, unfriendly
hostile is a quality of enmity.
Latin hostilis comes from hostis, an enemy, which earlier meant a stranger. Host, in the sense of a great number, comes from the same word.
Latin
hostīlis
Middle French
hostile
English, today
hostile
Built from
Borrowed from Middle French hostile, from Latin hostīlis, from hostis (“enemy”). Displaced Old English fēondlīċ.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA