Meaning

noun a hotel providing overnight lodging for travelers

noun inexpensive supervised lodging (especially for youths on bicycling trips)

originFrom Middle English hostel, from Old French hostel, ostel, from Late Latin hospitale (“hospice”), from Classical Latin hospitalis (“hospitable”) itself from hospes (“host”) + -alis (“-al”). Doublet of hotel and hospital. Not in use from late 17th c. (in the usual sense from mid 16th c.) to 1808, when it was revived by Walter Scott in his poem Marmion (see the quotation).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0