From Latin 'hospes' (guest/host/stranger) — originally a pilgrim guest-house, kin to 'hotel,' 'host,' 'hostile,' and 'guest.'
An institution providing medical and surgical treatment and nursing care for sick or injured people.
From Old French hospital (hostel, shelter, lodging), from Late Latin hospitāle (guest house, inn), neuter substantive of Latin hospitālis (of a guest), from hospes (guest, host — a word that remarkably means both), genitive hospitis. Hospes derives from the PIE root *gʰóstis (stranger, guest, host), which produced one of the most culturally revealing word-families in Indo-European. From *gʰóstis came Latin hostis (originally stranger, later enemy — hence English hostile, host in the military sense), Gothic gasts (guest), Old English giest (guest, stranger — hence modern English guest via Old
'Hospital,' 'hotel,' 'host,' 'hostile,' and 'guest' ALL come from the same PIE root *gʰóstis (stranger). A hospital is where strangers are cared for; a hotel is where they sleep; a host receives them; hospitality is the duty toward them. And 'hostile'? A stranger could be a guest OR an enemy — the same word covered