Word.ws English Dictionary

hostly

hostly adjective: pertaining to, or in a manner befitting, a host; welcoming or hospitable.

Adjective

hostly (comparative more hostly, superlative most hostly)

  1. Pertaining to, or in a manner befitting, a host; welcoming or hospitable.
    • On both visits he tended the wants of the British party with hostly warmth, and was accordingly rewarded with a hatchet and other small presents.2012, Inga Clendinnen, Dancing With Strangers, page 86

Forms of hostly

comparativemore hostly
superlativemost hostly

Origin of hostly

From host + -ly.

Questions about hostly

What does hostly mean?
Hostly means pertaining to, or in a manner befitting, a host; welcoming or hospitable.
What part of speech is hostly?
Hostly is an adjective.

Words near hostly in the dictionary

  1. hostlership
  2. hostlerships
  3. hostles
  4. hostless
  5. hostling
  6. hostly
  7. hostmask
  8. hostmasks
  9. hostmaster
  10. hostmasters
  11. hostname

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hostly (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: “hostly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hostly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.