NODE / 0152attestedPresent-Day English

hospital

PRONUNCIATION /ˈhɑːspɪtəl/

an institution for charitable residence and, later, medical care

DATE: 14th century–today
SENSE: medical care
FAMILY: Indo-European / Germanic
CANONICAL KEY: node:1:hospital:attested:sense:medical-care

The now-familiar medical sense developed after the lodging and charity senses.

ANCESTRAL EDGES

ROOT OF THIS ROOT

GO DEEPERcontinuationestablished

Middle English · Middle English · lodging care

hospital / ospitale

residence for pilgrims and travelers; charitable lodging for poor or infirm people

SOUND: Middle English hospital / ospitale continued into modern hospital with spelling and stress stabilization.
MEANING: Guest accommodation and charitable residence developed into the institution for medical care familiar today.
CHRONOLOGY: The medical sense developed in the 15th century after the 14th-century English borrowing.
SCHOLAR: Merriam-Webster editors
CONFIDENCE: established

Hospital — Word HistorysupportsMiddle English senses and First Known Use ORIGINAL ↗

Had a Long Day of Travel? Check Into a Hospitalsupportshospital semantic history

Describes lodging, charity, and later medical senses.

ORIGINAL ↗

OPEN CANONICAL EDGE 135 ↗

DIRECT DESCENDANT EDGES

THE NEXT HISTORICAL STEP

No reviewed descendants currently reuse this node. Absence describes the graph, not the entire history of the form.

TRANSITIVE DESCENDANT CLOSURE

EVERY REVIEWED BRANCH FROM HERE

This is the complete downstream closure currently supported by the canonical graph. Every displayed step is a real reviewed edge with its own sound claim, meaning claim, scholar, confidence, and citations.

UNIQUE DESCENDANT NODES: 0
REVIEWED EDGES: 0
DEEPEST PATH: 0
MODERN DOSSIERS REACHED: 0

No downstream edge has cleared review for this node. This is a graph-coverage statement, not a claim that the historical form produced nothing.

“Every” means every descendant in the reviewed SET-U graph. It does not convert missing scholarship or missing ingestion into a claim of historical completeness. The coverage ledger remains the honest denominator.

RECORDED EVIDENCE

ATTESTATIONS / FIRST KNOWN USE

SOURCE-REPORTEDlexicographic first useestablished

14th century

English lexicographic first-use record for hospital

Source-reported first-use period; no underlying manuscript witness was directly inspected.

hospital dossier · recorded as hospital

WITNESS RECORD ↗Hospital — Word History ↗

DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted bookestablished

1704

John Harris’s NOSOCOMIUM entry uses Hospital for an institution where poor sick people are attended and, if possible, cured.

NOSOCOMIUM, is an Hospital for Poor Sick People; where they are attended, and cured, if possible.

hospital dossier · recorded as hospital

ETH-Bibliothek Zürich · Rar 98 Ex.A GF, content image 2867636WITNESS RECORD ↗Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciences ↗FACSIMILE ↗

EDITORIAL REUSE

WORD DOSSIERS USING THIS NODE

01hospitalhospital · established