means The friendly, generous treatment of guests, visitors, or strangers — and, more broadly, the industry built around lodging, food, and welcome.

from From Latin hospes, a wonderfully two-faced word meaning both 'guest' and 'host' — the same root that gives us hospital, hostel, hotel, and (more darkly) hostage. It traces back to a Proto-Indo-European notion of the stranger one takes in, where 'guest' and 'enemy' were uneasy neighbors; the Latin hostis even drifted toward 'enemy,' a reminder that letting a stranger through the door has always been a gamble. Hospitality came into English through Old French hospitalité in the late Middle Ages, carrying the warmer half of that bargain — the duty to feed and shelter whoever arrives.