Etymograph

English

love hotel

Love hotel comes from Japanese ラブホテル ‘a love hotel’.

  1. Japanesemodernラブホテルrabu hoteru‘a love hotel’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 2021love hotel

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Japanesemodernラブホテルrabu hoteru‘a love hotel’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 2021love hotel

Earliest quotation: 2021, Margo DeMello, Bloomsbury: “Love hotels differ in terms of price (from about…”

The story

Phono-semantic matching of Japanese ラブホテル (rabu hoteru), itself a wasei eigo (和製英語; pseudo-anglicism) derived from love + hotel. The term probably makes reference to the rotating sign of the Hotel Love, an early love hotel in Osaka, Japan.

Every English word from Japanese ラブホテル

Today it means

noun A short-stay hotel found in Japan and elsewhere, operated primarily for the purpose of allowing lovers privacy to have sexual intercourse.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Japanese ラブホテル / love hotel

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