guesthouse - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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.

guesthouse (plural guesthouses)

  1. A small house near a main house, for lodging visitors.
    • 1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 32:
      The wine house and the guest house were hung with curtains shining bright against the wooden walls.
  2. A private house offering accommodation to paying guests; a boarding house; a bed and breakfast.
    • 2004, Mary Fitzpatrick et al., South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland‎[1], Lonely Planet, →ISBN, page 199:
      Low-season competition between the several backpackers and many guesthouses in town keeps prices down, but in high season expect steep price hikes (except at the backpackers) and book ahead.
    • 2009 March 13, Pico Iyer, “Heaven’s Gate”, in The New York Times‎[2]:
      For me, in any case, Ladakh seemed a beautifully unfallen place next to the blue-glass shopping malls of modern Lhasa, the global village of pizza joints and guesthouses that is urban Nepal, or long-isolated Bhutan with its chic new hotels.
    • 2009 August 30, Laura M. Holson, “A Dip Into Hollywood”, in The New York Times‎[3]:
      And Ms. Davies’s 7,000-square-foot guesthouse, the only building from the original estate to survive, is already a favorite among card-playing foursomes and others who want to lounge on the second-story deck and watch dolphins bob in the whitecapped waves.

small house for visitors