hospital

[13] Like hospices, hostels, and hotels, hospitals were originally simply places at which guests were received. The word comes via Old French hospital from medieval Latin hospitāle, a noun use of the adjective hospitālis ‘of a guest’. This in turn was derived from hospit-. the stem of Latin hospes ‘guest, host’. In English, hospital began its semantic shift in the 15th century, being used for a ‘home for the elderly or infirm, or for down-and-outs’; and the modern sense ‘place where the sick are treated’ first appeared in the 16th century. The original notion of ‘receiving guests’ survives, of course, in hospitality [14] and hospitable [16]. Hospice [19] comes via French from Latin hospitium ‘hospitality’, another derivative of hospes. => HOSPICE, HOSPITABLE, HOST, HOSTEL, HOTEL

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   In medieval times the word was used for a place where poor and sick people were cared for, and given hospitality. Only in the 16th century did the word take on its present, more specialized use. Hospice and hostel are related words.