tavern

plural taverns

1. A restaurant or bar.
2. datedA building containing a bar licensed to sell alcoholic drinks, and offering sleeping accommodations for travelers.

   At one of the way-stations on his long journey a barmaid at a tavern speaks to Gilgamesh and tries to give him common sense on the human condition.

   1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 201

   3 more examples

   I maruell I heare no nevves of Dromio, either hee ſlackes the matter, or betrayes his maiſter, I dare not motion anie thing to Stellio, till I knovve vvhat my boy hath don; Ile hunt him out, if the loiterſacke be gone ſpringing into a tauerne, Ile fetch him reeling out.

   c. 1590 (date written), [John Lyly], Mother Bombie. […], London: […] Thomas Scarlet for Cuthbert Burby, published 1594, →OCLC, Act II, scene ii, signature C3, verso

   Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky / I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry, / "Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup / Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."

   1859, Omar Khayyam, “(please specify the quatrain number in uppercase Roman numerals)”, in [Edward FitzGerald], transl., Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia. […], facsimile edition, London: Bernard Quaritch, […], →OCLC, page 1

   At half-past nine on this Saturday evening the parlor of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors. […] In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for the select circle—a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening for a pipe and a cheerful glass.

   1892, Walter Besant, “The Select Circle”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 46

   Synonyms: inn, alehouse, boozer, boozing ken, bousing ken, drinker, drinkery, gargle-factory

1. obsoleteOxford University slangNew Inn Hall, Oxford, one of the earliest medieval halls of the University of Oxford.