MOTEL
What does "MOTEL" mean?
A roadside hotel for motorists, with rooms typically opening onto a parking area.
Meanings
- A lodging designed for travelers by car, with rooms accessible directly from an adjacent lot. They pulled into a cheap motel off the highway just after midnight.
Did you know?
- 'Motel' is 'motor' plus 'hotel', coined in 1925 for the Milestone Mo-Tel in San Luis Obispo, California - a brand-new word for a brand-new thing: lodging built around the car, not the railway.
Word origin
A 1925 blend of 'motor' and 'hotel', coined for an establishment built to serve America's new car travelers.
Remember it
MOTEL = MOTor + hotEL: a hotel you drive your motor right up to.
A little poem
Neon hums VACANCY in the dark,
a key on a plastic diamond,
one night between two long roads.
tercet
Wordplay
- The hotel and the highway had a kid. They named it the motel - half rest, half restless.
What it teaches
New ways of moving build new kinds of resting; the car didn't just change the road, it invented a place to stop.
Quick facts
What does MOTEL mean?
A roadside hotel for motorists, with rooms typically opening onto a parking area.
Is MOTEL a valid word?
Yes — MOTEL is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is MOTEL?
MOTEL has 5 letters and 2 syllables.
Where does MOTEL come from?
A 1925 blend of 'motor' and 'hotel', coined for an establishment built to serve America's new car travelers.
What can MOTEL teach us?
New ways of moving build new kinds of resting; the car didn't just change the road, it invented a place to stop.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.