Definitions

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

  • noun One who receives or entertains guests in a social or official capacity.
  • noun A person who manages an inn or hotel.
  • noun One that furnishes facilities and resources for a function or event.
  • noun The emcee or interviewer on a radio or television program.
  • noun Biology The animal or plant on which or in which another organism lives.
  • noun Medicine The recipient of a transplanted tissue or organ.
  • noun A computer or other device providing data or services that a remote computer can access by means of a network or modem.
  • noun A computer that is connected to a TCP/IP network, such as the Internet.
  • transitive verb To serve as host to or at.
  • transitive verb To provide software that offers data or services, hardware, or both over a computer network.
  • noun An army.
  • noun A great number; a multitude. synonym: multitude.
  • noun The consecrated bread or wafer of the Eucharist.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To assemble or move as an army.
  • noun An army; a multitude of men organized for war.
  • noun Any great number or multitude.
  • To administer the sacrament to.
  • noun Same as hoast.
  • noun One who receives and entertains another in his own house, whether gratuitously or for pay; an entertainer; specifically, the landlord of a public house or inn: the correlative of guest.
  • noun An animal or a plant in relation to a parasite habitually dwelling in or upon it. The correlative term, in either case, is guest. See commensal, guest, inquiline, parasite, hyperparasite.
  • noun In zoölogy the term is a very general and comprehensive one, since almost all animals are infested, or liable to infestation, by parasites of some kind; and some parasites are themselves hosts of others.
  • noun In mineralogy, a mineral which incloses another.
  • noun One who is entertained by another as his guest; a guest.
  • noun An inn; a lodging.
  • To lodge, as at an inn; receive entertainment; be a guest.
  • To give entertainment to; receive as a guest.
  • noun An offering; a sacrifice.
  • noun In the Western Ch.: The sacramental victim in the eucharist; Christ offered under the species of bread and wine, or under either species separately.
  • noun One of the pieces of bread used for consecration in the mass or eucharist; au altar-bread, oblate, or wafer.

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

  • noun (R. C. Ch.) The consecrated wafer, believed to be the body of Christ, which in the Mass is offered as a sacrifice; also, the bread before consecration.
  • noun An army; a number of men gathered for war.
  • noun Any great number or multitude; a throng.
  • noun One who receives or entertains another, whether gratuitously or for compensation; one from whom another receives food, lodging, or entertainment; a landlord.
  • noun (Biol.) Any animal or plant affording lodgment or subsistence to a parasitic or commensal organism. .
  • intransitive verb obsolete To lodge at an inn; to take up entertainment.
  • transitive verb obsolete To give entertainment to.

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

  • noun A multitude of people arrayed as an army; used also in religious senses, as: Heavenly host (of angels)
  • noun A large number of items; a large inventory.
  • noun Catholicism The consecrated bread or wafer of the Eucharist.
  • noun A person who allows a guest, particularly into the host’s home.
  • noun A person or organization responsible for running an event.
  • noun A moderator or master of ceremonies for a performance.
  • noun computing, Internet, Unix Any computer attached to a network.
  • noun computing, networking A computer or software component that provides services.
  • noun biology A cell or organism which harbors another organism or biological entity, usually a parasite.
  • noun evolutionism, genetics An organism bearing certain genetic material.
  • noun Consecrated bread such as that used in the Christian ceremony of the Eucharist.
  • verb To perform the role of a host.
  • verb obsolete, intransitive To lodge at an inn.

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, host, guest, from Old French, from Latin hospes, hospit-; see ghos-ti- in Indo-European roots.]

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

[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin hostis, from Latin, enemy; see ghos-ti- in Indo-European roots.]

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

[Middle English, from Latin hostia, sacrifice.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French hoste, from Middle Latin hostis ("foreign enemy") (as opposed to inimicus ("personal enemy")), cognate with etymology 1.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English also oist, ost, from Old French hoiste, from Latin hostia ("sacrificial victim").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French oste (French: hôte), from Middle Latin hospitem, accusative of hospes ("a host, also a sourjourner, visitor, guest; hence, a foreigner, a stranger"), probably contr. of originally *hostipes, from hostis ("a stranger") + -pes. Used in English since 13th Century.

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Examples

  • Who has not imagined to himself a country inn, where the traveller shall really feel _in_, and at home, and at his public-house, who was before at his private house; whose host is indeed a _host_, and a _lord_ of the

    Excursions Henry David Thoreau 1839

  • The nodes file has 2 columns, first one is the IP and the second is the hostname while read line do ip = ` echo $line | gawk - F ""'{print $1}' ` host = ` echo $line | gawk - F ""'{print $2}' ` pxeboot - a - O rhel5compute - r 28753 - S $host - e eth0 - N my_nis_domain - s console = ttyS0,115200n8r $ip done

    LinuxQuestions.org 2009

  • The word host implies that it's your party and you're supplying the food and drink.

    Lisa Mirza Grotts: Summer Party Etiquette for Hosts and Guests Lisa Mirza Grotts 2011

  • The term host is usually used for the larger (macro) of the two members of a symbiosis.

    Middle East Politics Divides Progressives 2006

  • The term host is usually used for the larger (macro) of the two members of a symbiosis.

    Middle East Politics Divides Progressives 2006

  • I use the term host to emphasize our being sojourners, or citizens of two Kingdoms / cultures simultaneously with responsibilities to each.

    futuristguy 2008

  • But, I know that our host is a Saké-loving guy, with tons of knowledge on the subject, but he's making it easy for the newbies:

    LENNDEVOURS: 2009

  • But, I know that our host is a Saké-loving guy, with tons of knowledge on the subject, but he's making it easy for the newbies:

    Wine Blogging Wednesday #59 Announced: WBW #59: An Homage to Kushi no Kami 2009

  • To succeed, a talk show host must perpetuate the notion that his or her listeners are victims, and the host is the vehicle by which they can become empowered.

    February « 2010 « Gerry Canavan 2010

  • But, I know that our host is a Saké-loving guy, with tons of knowledge on the subject, but he's making it easy for the newbies:

    Wine Blogging Wednesday 2009

Comments

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  • Contranymic in the sense of an individual vs. a multitude.

    March 2, 2007

  • Host is the Czech word for guest according to futilitycloset.com.

    March 4, 2013

  • guest and host (and also hostile, hospice, hospital and hospitable ) are from the same Indo-European root, ghos-ti- , a stranger or 'someone with whom one has reciprocal duties of hospitality.'

    Can it get much stranger? Give the outside a ghost (ghost is derived from the IE root gheis- - spirit, breathe) of a chance!

    March 4, 2013