Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A public lodging house serving food and drink to travelers; a hotel.
  • noun A tavern or restaurant.
  • noun Chiefly British Formerly, a residence hall for students, especially law students, in London.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • An obsolete form of in.
  • noun A house; a dwelling; a dwelling-place; an abode.
  • noun Habitation; abode; residence.
  • noun A house for the lodging and entertainment of travelers; in law, a public house kept for the lodging and entertainment of such as may choose to visit it, and providing what is necessary for their subsistence, for compensation; a tavern; a public hotel.
  • noun A college or building in which students were lodged and taught: now retained only for the Inns of Court, in London. See below.
  • noun The town residence of a person of quality; a private hotel: as, Leicester Inn.
  • noun The precincts or premises occupied by these societies respectively. They are the Inner Temple, Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn. The first two originally belonged to the Knights Templars, whence the name Temple.
  • noun Synonyms Hotel, House, etc. See tavern.
  • To furnish entertainment and lodging to; place in shelter.
  • To take up lodging; lodge.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb rare To take lodging; to lodge.
  • noun obsolete A place of shelter; hence, dwelling; habitation; residence; abode.
  • noun A house for the lodging and entertainment of travelers or wayfarers; a tavern; a public house; a hotel.
  • noun engraving The town residence of a nobleman or distinguished person.
  • noun One of the colleges (societies or buildings) in London, for students of the law barristers
  • noun (Eng.) colleges in which young students formerly began their law studies, now occupied chiefly bp attorn`ys, solocitors, etc.
  • noun (Eng.) the four societies of “students and practicers of the law of England” which in London exercise the exclusive right of admitting persons to practice at the bar; also, the buildings in which the law students and barristers have their chambers. They are the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn.
  • transitive verb obsolete To house; to lodge.
  • transitive verb To get in; to in. See In, v. t.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any establishment where travellers can procure lodging, food, and drink.
  • noun A tavern.
  • verb obsolete To house; to lodge.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a hotel providing overnight lodging for travelers

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English; see en in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English inn.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word inn.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • I really like this word, but I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's short and simple and sounds cozy. I do recognize, however, that it enables countless cutesy punny names like The Dewdrop Inn.

    December 7, 2007

  • It's more like a public house (UK = "pub"; other folk = bar) that offers accommodation of some sort. Not as upmarket as a hotel.

    June 18, 2008