Definition
An archaic Latin term from old English law meaning to entertain or lodge a guest. The root verb *hospitare* (to receive as a guest) generated several forms found in medieval legal records: *hospitatus* (one who has been entertained; a guest); *ad hospitandum* (for the purpose of lodging or entertaining); and *causâ hospitandi* (for the purpose of being received as a guest). These forms appear in writs, charter rolls, and early common law pleadings concerned with the duties and liabilities arising from the reception of travelers or guests.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of "ho" — a colloquial or exclamatory term with no legal meaning.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not independently defined; derived from Latin *hospes* (host, guest), the same root that yields "hospital," "hospitality," and "host."
The gap here is nearly total. The modern English word "hos" carries no legal or formal content whatsoever. Researchers encountering "hos" in old English legal manuscripts or Year Book materials are looking at Latin inflected forms — not an English word — and the Wiktionary entry provides no useful guidance for that context.
Common Confusion
*Hos*, *hospes*, *hosteler*, and *innkeeper* orbit the same conceptual space in historical sources but are not interchangeable. *Hospes* is the base Latin noun (host or guest — the same word served both roles in classical Latin). *Hos* as a verb form (*hospitare*) describes the act of receiving. *Hosteler* is the Middle English and law French term for the keeper of a hostelry. Researchers should not conflate the legal duties attached to each: the formal strict liability rules of innkeeper law attached to recognized *hospitium* (inns), not to all acts of *hospitare*.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in medieval and early modern English legal sources — Year Books, Rolls of Parliament, charter materials, and early abridgments — and will not be found in modern case reporters under this form. Researchers working in Law Mind's historical corpus should treat *hos*, *hospitatus*, and *causâ hospitandi* as markers pointing toward innkeeper and hospitality law, the law of common carriers, and early tort law concerning duties owed to travelers.
The reference in Burrill to Lord Ellenborough in 4 M. & S. 310 is significant: it shows this Latin vocabulary surviving into early nineteenth-century English judicial usage, meaning the terms are not confined to medieval Year Books but can appear in reported cases from the King's Bench well into the common law period. Researchers should check surrounding pleadings and argument sections of early reports, where Latin phrases were routinely embedded in English text.
Watch for *hospitium* as the parallel noun form (the inn or house where guests are received) — it frequently appears alongside *hos* in charter and register materials and is the jurisdictional anchor for the strict liability rules that eventually became modern innkeeper law.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the primary support for this entry, citing Britton (*Britt. fol. 1b*), the Articuli super Cartas (*Artic. sup. Chart.*), and the Register of Original Writs (*Reg. Orig. 105*) — three foundational sources of medieval English public and administrative law. The citation to Lord Ellenborough is particularly useful because it bridges the archaic Latin form to recognized common law doctrine.
Burrill does not attempt a full doctrinal treatment; his entry is a short definitional note, characteristic of his handling of Latin terms that functioned more as procedural vocabulary than substantive legal concepts. Other historical dictionaries in the standard shelf — Jacob, Tomlin, Bouvier — do not carry a dedicated entry for *hos* in this form, though cognate terms (*hospitium*, *innkeeper*, *common inn*) receive fuller treatment there. The absence of the term from American legal dictionaries reflects both its medieval origins and the fact that American law absorbed the underlying doctrine through innkeeper rules rather than through the Latin vocabulary.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to English legal history and has no direct American doctrinal equivalent. The substantive law it reflects — duties arising from the reception of guests — passed into American common law under the rubrics of innkeeper liability and common carrier law, shedding the Latin forms in the process.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Innkeeper's Liability; History of Common Carrier and Hospitality Obligations at Common Law.