Word.ws English Dictionary

hostle

hostle verb: to maintain (a locomotive or other large engine); to do the work of a hostler.

Verb

hostle (third-person singular simple present hostles, present participle hostling, simple past and past participle hostled)

  1. (US) To maintain (a locomotive or other large engine); to do the work of a hostler.
    • The employees contend that inasmuch as there are seven engines hostled at Sleepy Eye within a 12-hour period, a hostler from the ranks of the firemen must be assigned […]1924, Decisions of the United States Railroad Labor Board, page 732

Forms of hostle

third-person singular presenthostles
present participlehostling
past participlehostled
pasthostled

Questions about hostle

What does hostle mean?
Hostle means to maintain (a locomotive or other large engine); to do the work of a hostler.
What part of speech is hostle?
Hostle is a verb.
What is the past tense of hostle?
The past tense of hostle is hostled.

Words near hostle in the dictionary

  1. hostilizes
  2. hostilizing
  3. hosting
  4. hostings
  5. hostis humani generis
  6. hostle
  7. hostled
  8. hostler
  9. hostlers
  10. hostlership
  11. hostlerships

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hostle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “hostle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hostle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.