hospitalist

H4O1S1P3I1T1A1L1I1S1T1

noun

A hospitaller.

OriginEnglish hospital ← Middle English hospital ← Old French hospita →
UncommonFirst used c. 1995Scrabble 16
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Meanings

nounhospitalist (plural hospitalists)

plural hospitalists

  1. A hospitaller.
  2. USA physician who specializes in the care of hospital inpatients.First known use c. 1995

Origin

  1. Proto-Indo-European*gʰóstis
  2. Proto-Indo-European*pótis
  3. Proto-Indo-European*gʰóstipotis
  4. Proto-Italic*hostipotis
  5. Latinhospes
  6. Proto-Indo-European*h₂el-
  7. Proto-Indo-European*h₂élisder.?
  8. Latinhospitālis
  9. Late Latinhospitāle
  10. Old Frenchhospita
  11. Middle Englishhospital
  12. Englishhospital
  13. Englishhospitalist

From hospital + -ist. The “physician” sense was coined by Robert M. Wachter and Lee Goldman in a 1996 article in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

hospitalist. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hospitalist

MLA

“hospitalist.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hospitalist. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hospitalist,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hospitalist.

Source: hospitalist on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.