Definition of "hospital"

hospital

/ˈhɒs.pɪ.tl̩/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural hospitals
1. A large medical facility, usually in a building with multiple floors, where seriously ill or injured patients are given extensive medical and/or surgical treatment.
  Quotations
  This section of the Act gives the court powers to assess whether treatment is going to be beneficial and hence whether hospital is a suitable disposal option.
  2010, Sameer P. Sarkar, “Mental health law and the mentally disordered offender”, in Annie Bartlett, Gill McGauley, editors, Forensic Mental Health: Concepts, Systems, and Practice, Oxford University Press, section 3 (Law), page 265
2. A building founded for the long-term care of its residents, such as an almshouse. The residents may have no physical ailments, but simply need financial support.
3. (obsolete) A place of lodging.
  Quotations
  […] they spide a goodly castle, plast / Foreby a riuer in a pleasaunt dale, / Which choosing for that euenings hospitale, / They thither marcht […]
  1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie
adjective
comparative more hospital, superlative most hospital
1. (obsolete) Hospitable.
  Quotations
  At last the Ocean, that hospital friend to the wretched, opened her capacious arms to receive him; and he instantly resolved to accept her kind invitation.
  1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […]

Definition of "hospital"

hospital

noun

Quotations

Quotations

adjective

Quotations