guesthouse

• guest house, guest-house (rare)

From Middle English gest hous, gistenehus, gystehuse, gesthus, partly from Old English gæsthūs, ġesthūs (“guesthouse, hostel; guest-chamber”), from Proto-West Germanic *gastihūs; and partly from Old Norse gesthús (“guesthouse; guest-chamber”); both from Proto-Germanic *gastihūsą, corresponding to guest +‎ house.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɛsthaʊs/

guesthouse (plural guesthouses)

1. A small house near a main house, for lodging visitors.
   • 1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 32:

     The wine house and the guest house were hung with curtains shining bright against the wooden walls.

2. A private house offering accommodation to paying guests; a boarding house; a bed and breakfast.
   • 2004, Mary Fitzpatrick et al., South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland‎^[1], Lonely Planet, →ISBN, page 199:

     Low-season competition between the several backpackers and many guesthouses in town keeps prices down, but in high season expect steep price hikes (except at the backpackers) and book ahead.

   • 2009 March 13, Pico Iyer, “Heaven’s Gate”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     For me, in any case, Ladakh seemed a beautifully unfallen place next to the blue-glass shopping malls of modern Lhasa, the global village of pizza joints and guesthouses that is urban Nepal, or long-isolated Bhutan with its chic new hotels.

   • 2009 August 30, Laura M. Holson, “A Dip Into Hollywood”, in The New York Times‎^[3]:

     And Ms. Davies’s 7,000-square-foot guesthouse, the only building from the original estate to survive, is already a favorite among card-playing foursomes and others who want to lounge on the second-story deck and watch dolphins bob in the whitecapped waves.

• See also Thesaurus:lodging place

• house

• (client accommodations): paying guest house, PG house

• Japanese: ゲストハウス (​gesutohausu)
• Korean: 게스트하우스 (geseuteuhauseu)

• house guest, houseguest