Definition of "hostel"

hostel

/ˈhɑstəl/

noun
plural hostels
1. A commercial overnight lodging place, with dormitory accommodation and shared facilities, especially a youth hostel.
2. (not US) A temporary refuge for the homeless providing a bed and sometimes food.
3. (obsolete) A small, unendowed college in Oxford or Cambridge.
  Quotations
  There are also in Oxford certeine hostels or hals, which may rightwell be called by the names of colleges , if it were not that there is more libertie in them , than is to be seen in the other
  1577, Raphaell Holinshed, The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Harrison
4. (India) A university dormitory, a place of accommodation for students.
verb
third-person singular simple present hostels, present participle hosteling or hostelling, simple past and past participle hosteled or hostelled
1. (intransitive) To stay in a hostel during one's travels.
2. (transitive) To lodge (a person) in a hostel.