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The "m" in motel refers to a motorcar. The "h" in hotel, an older term, is presumably a reference to a horse.

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Curious Canid@lemmy.ca
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Metostopholes@midwest.social
47 points

You can go further back. The Old French ostel is from the Latin hospitale, meaning “inn” or “large house”, which is the noun form of the adjective hospitalis, from hospes, meaning “host”.

So the H in hotel is for host, kind of.

(you can go further back into the theoretical language Proto-Indo-European, but there’s no written record of it, so no letter H that we know of)

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lordnikon@lemmy.world
6 points

Very cool so really host is the root meaning as far as the written record shows.

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