Pronounced: SLEEV-luhs (alt: SLEEV-lis), adj
Notes: Besides the obvious, this had a meaning I didn’t know
Yesterday’s word
The word caravansary means
- an inn surrounding a court in eastern countries where caravans rest
- hotel; inn
First usage
Our word came into English in the late 1500s
Background / Comments
Our word came from the Middle East, where in ancient times, quadrangular inns allowed caravans of camels to stay in the central court, which was often large enough to hold 300-400 camels. Such inns were called caravansaries, which comes from caravan and the Persian word sarāī (place; inn). A synonym is the word serai. Our word may also be spelled caravanserai.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 