hotel
/həʊˈtɛl/
"hotel" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hotel” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,191 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,191
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A large town house or mansion; a grand private residence, especially in France.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hotel |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /həʊˈtɛl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,191 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hotel” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hotel is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /həʊˈtɛl/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,191 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for hotel, with forms such as "hhotel", "hoetl", and "hotell". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Howe", "howl", "hove", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Italic *hostipotjālis Latin hospitālis Old French ostel Middle French hostel French hôtelbor. English hotel Borrowed from French hôtel, from Middle French hostel, from Old French ostel, from Late Latin hospitālis (“hospice, shelter, gue… The correct English form is hotel, spelled H-O-T-E-L.
Definition
- 1A large town house or mansion; a grand private residence, especially in France.
- 2An establishment that provides accommodation and other services for paying guests; normally larger than a guesthouse, and often one of a chain.
- 3A public house or pub.
- 4A restaurant; any dining establishment.
- 5Alternative letter-case form of Hotel from the NATO/ICAO Phonetic Alphabet.
- 6The larger red property in the game of Monopoly, in contradistinction to houses.
- 7The guest accommodation and dining section of a cruise ship.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Italic *hostipotjālis Latin hospitālis Old French ostel Middle French hostel French hôtelbor. English hotel Borrowed from French hôtel, from Middle French hostel, from Old French ostel, from Late Latin hospitālis (“hospice, shelter, guesthouse”), from Latin hospitālis (“hospitable”). Doublet of hostel and hospital.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hhotel,hoetl,hotell,hotle,hottel,htoel,ohtel
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of hotel - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "hotel"?
What does "hotel" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "hotel"?
How do you pronounce "hotel"?
What is the origin of the word "hotel"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “hotel”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-O-T-E-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /həʊˈtɛl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Howe” - see the side-by-side comparison. hotel vs Howe
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.