hospital

plural hospitals · alternative obsolete hospitale

1. countableuncountableA large medical facility, usually in a building with multiple floors, where seriously ill or injured patients are given extensive medical or surgical treatment.

   Luckily an ambulance arrived quickly and he was rushed to hospital.

   2 more examples

   Luckily an ambulance arrived quickly and he was rushed to the hospital.

   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, →ISBN, section 3 (Law), page 265

2. archaiccountableuncountableA building founded for the long-term care of its residents, such as an almshouse.

   The foundling hospital took in abandoned children and educated them.

3. countableobsoleteuncountableA place of lodging.

   […] 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, →OCLC

comparative more hospital · superlative most hospital · alternative obsolete hospitale

1. obsoleteHospitable.

   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, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC

plural Hospitals

1. A surname.