Word.ws English Dictionary

inn

/ɪn/

inn noun: any establishment where travellers can procure lodging, food, and drink.

Noun (1)

inn (plural inns)

  1. Any establishment where travellers can procure lodging, food, and drink.
    • [H]ow much more agreeable to himself to get into snug quarters in a chateau, [...] rather than take up with the miserable lodgement, and miserable fare of a country inn.1824, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “The Adventure of My Uncle”, in Tales of a Traveller, part 1 (Strange Stories. […]), Philadelphia, Pa.: H[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] Lea...
    • One morning I had been driven to the precarious refuge afforded by the steps of the inn, after rejecting offers from the Celebrity to join him in a variety of amusements. But even here I was not free from interruption, for he was seated on a horse-block below me, playing with a fox terrier.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, pages 46–47
  2. A tavern.
  3. One of the colleges (societies or buildings) in London, for students of the law barristers.
    • the Inns of Court the Inns of Chancery Serjeants’ Inns
  4. (UK, dated) The town residence of a nobleman or distinguished person.
    • Leicester Inn
  5. (obsolete) A place of shelter; hence, dwelling, residence, abode.
    • But nowe ſadde Winter welked hath the day, / And Phœbus weary of his yerely taſ-ke: / Yſtabled hath his ſteedes in lowlye laye / And taken vp his ynne in Fiſhes haſ-ke.1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Nouember. Ægloga Vndecima.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC, folio 44, verso
    • Therefore with me ye may take vp your In / For this ſame night.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 33, page 12

Verb

inn (third-person singular simple present inns, present participle inning, simple past and past participle inned)

  1. (intransitive, obsolete) To take lodging; to lodge or house oneself.
    • But where do you intend to inn to-night?1714 March 15 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Free-holder: No. 22. Thursday, March 5. [1714.]”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; […], volume IV, London: […] Jacob...
    • We inned at the signe of the Swan.circa 1570, Foxe, A. & M. (1596), 1554/2
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To lodge or house (someone or something).
    • I have but Inn'd my horse since, master Cockstone.2018 [1607], Thomas Middleton, Michaelmas term and a trick to catch the old one, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, →ISBN, page 27
    • These Inn'd themselves all Night in Knights-bridge Fields.1710, New Map Trav. High Church Apostle, 7, quoted in 1901, James Augustus Henry Murray, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles: part 1. H (1901), page 309

Noun (2) capitalized: INN

INN (plural INNs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of international nonproprietary name.

Proper noun capitalized: Inn

Inn

  1. A right tributary of the Danube in Switzerland, Austria and Germany.

inn meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

inn in Hindi

lodging
अतिथिशाला atithiśālā, अतिथिगृह atithigŕh, सराय sarāy, धर्मशाला dharmaśālā, पथिकाश्रय pathikāśray, मरहला marahlā

inn in Tamil

lodging
விடுதி viṭuti

inn in Urdu

lodging
مُسافِر خانَہ musāfir xāna, مِہْمان سَرا mihmān sarā, مِہْمان خانَہ mihmān xāna

inn in Bengali

সরাইখানা
More languagesFewer languages
inn in Telugu
హోటలు hōṭalu, ధాభా dhābhā
inn in Gujarati
ધર્મશાળા
inn in Arabic
خَان ḵān, اِسْتِرَاحَة istirāḥa
inn in Malay
rumah penginapan, inapan pinggir
inn in Indonesian
rumah inap
inn in Thai
โรงเตี๊ยม roong-dtíiam
inn in Vietnamese
quán trọ, khách sạn
inn in Myanmar
တည်းခိုခန်း tany:hkuihkan:

Examples of inn in a sentence

  • John Welch, Cornish Carrier, who formerly Inn'd at the Mermaid in Exon, is now removed to the Bear-Inn.1726, Brice's Weekly Journal, 18 February, 3:
  • I inned at the best house, the Star and Garter.1885, M. J. Colquhoun, Primes in Indis, I, xiv, 217:

All 40 example sentences with inn

Synonyms of inn

11 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of inn

Forms of inn

Noun
pluralinns
pluralINNs
Verb
third-person singular presentinns
present participleinning
past participleinned
pastinned

Plural of inn: inns

Origin of inn

From Middle English in, inn, from Old English inn (“a dwelling, house, chamber, lodging”); akin to Icelandic inni (“a dwelling place, home, abode”), Faroese inni (“home”).

Words formed from inn

Phrases with inn

Words that rhyme with inn

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about inn

What does inn mean?
Inn means any establishment where travellers can procure lodging, food, and drink.
What is inn in Hindi?
Inn in Hindi is अतिथिशाला (atithiśālā), अतिथिगृह (atithigŕh), सराय (sarāy). See Inn meaning in Hindi.
How do you use inn in a sentence?
John Welch, Cornish Carrier, who formerly Inn'd at the Mermaid in Exon, is now removed to the Bear-Inn.
What part of speech is inn?
Inn can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce inn?
Inn is pronounced /ɪn/.
What is the plural of inn?
The plural of inn is inns.

Words near inn in the dictionary

  1. inmostness
  2. inmosts
  3. inmove
  4. inmoves
  5. INMs
  6. inn
  7. Inn of Court
  8. inn yard
  9. inn yards
  10. inn-yard
  11. inn-yards

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: inn (page history and authors); INN (page history and authors); Inn (page history and authors); inn (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); inn (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-inn.ogg.

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