accommodation

plural accommodations · alternative misspelling accomodation

1. AustraliaUKcountableuncountablea mass nounLodging in a dwelling or similar living quarters afforded to travellers in hotels or on cruise ships, or students, etc.

   I have booked the accommodation for my trip to Paris.

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   So, it's settled. I'm going to Penzance. Hooray! I've even booked my accommodation.

   2009 July 18, Alice-Azania Jarvis, “Alice-Azania Jarvis: 'A taste for seafood could break my holiday budget'”, in The Independent

   If you’re looking for a Caribbean adventure with luxurious accommodation then this is the place for you.

   2015 October 7, Richard Harbourne, “St. Lucia”, in Travel Counsellors

   Their accommodation that day was the Uganda Wildlife Authority Student Education Centre at Paraa. This area was not typically visited by foreign tourists because it offered only basic amenities. Lightly furnished rooms and shared bathrooms were found in the outbuildings.

   2026 August 13, Nicholas Muhoro, “Dutch Medical Student Sophia Koetsier Vanished in Uganda in 2015. An Unknown Man’s DNA Was Later Found on Her Clothing”, in Skip Boring, archived from the original on 14 Aug 2026

   Synonyms: housing

2. Adaptation or adjustment.
   1. countablephysicaluncountablewith toThe act of fitting or adapting, or the state of being fitted or adapted; adaptation; adjustment.

      It is true, the organization of the humane and animal Body, with accommodation to their several functions and offices, is certainly fitted with the most curious and exact Mechanism imaginable

      1677, Sir Matthew Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind: Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature, →OCLC, page 49

   2. countablephysicaluncountableA convenience, a fitting, something satisfying a need.

      Mr. Cooke had had a sloop yacht built at Far Harbor, the completion of which had been delayed, and which was but just delivered. […] The Maria had a cabin, which was finished in hard wood and yellow plush, and accommodations for keeping things cold.

      1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter X, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

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      ...and Lady Anne, for the present, felt as if Fanchette and her coach full of accommodations, heavy as they might once be supposed to be, were suddenly swallowed up in that awful sea, to which so many refractory spirits have been exorcised and consigned.

      1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 226

   3. countablephysicalbiologyThe adaptation or adjustment of an organism, organ, or part.
   4. countablephysicalmedicineThe adjustment of the eye to a change of the distance from an observed object.
   5. countablepersonaluncountableWillingness to accommodate; obligingness.
   6. countablepersonaluncountableAdjustment of differences; state of agreement; reconciliation; settlement; compromise.

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      Some of the recent literature on the Germanic settlements reads like an account of a tea party at the Roman vicarage. A shy newcomer to the village, who is a useful prospect for the cricket team, is invited in. There is a brief moment of awkwardness, while the host finds an empty chair and pours a fresh cup of tea; but the conversation, and village life, soon flow on. The accommodation that was reached between invaders and invaded in the fifth- and sixth-century West was very much more difficult, and more interesting, than this.

      2005, Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, page 82

   7. countablepersonalThe application of a writer's language, on the ground of analogy, to something not originally referred to or intended.

      It is probable to my apprehension, that many of those quotations were intended by the writers of the New Testament as nothing more than accommodations.

      1794, William Paley, A View of the Evidences of Christianity, reprinted in 1818 by James Robertson, page 283

   8. countablepersonalbusinessA loan of money.
   9. countablepersonalbusinessAn accommodation bill or note.
   10. countablepersonallawAn offer of substitute goods to fulfill a contract, which will bind the purchaser if accepted.
   11. countablepersonaluncountablelifestyleAn adaptation or method of interpretation which explains the special form in which the revelation is presented as unessential to its contents, or rather as often adopted by way of compromise with human ignorance or weakness.
3. countablegeographyThe place where sediments can make, or have made, a sedimentation.
4. countableuncountablehuman sciencesModification(s) to make one's way of communicating similar to others involved in a conversation or discourse.

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   Pilots […] use the word fuselage whereas laypeople would more likely call the same "thing" the body of an aircraft. […] We have said above that speakers often signal that they belong to a certain group by making their language more similar to that of the other group members […] we thus adapt our language, dialect, accent, style and/or register to that of our addressee or addressees. This process is called speech accommodation. Among the reasons for accommodation may be our desire to identify more closely with the addressee(s), […]

   2017 February 13, Annette Becker, Markus Bieswanger, Introduction to English Linguistics, UTB, →ISBN, page 178