Hospitalization

How to spell hospitalization

15 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce hospitalization

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hospitalization mean?

1. nounThe act of admitting a patient to hospital, or the period spent receiving care there.

Hospitalization in a sentence

• The insurance policy covers the full cost of hospitalization after an accident.

• Prompt treatment at home can sometimes prevent hospitalization altogether.

Where does hospitalization come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built up in layers, and tracing them backwards explains its length. At the base is the Latin hospitalis, meaning 'relating to a guest', which itself comes from hospes, a curious word that could mean either 'guest' or 'host' depending on context. The noun 'hospital' entered English through Old French in the medieval period, originally describing a charitable house that offered shelter and care to travellers, the poor, and the sick, only later narrowing to a place of medical treatment. From 'hospital' the verb 'hospitalize', meaning 'to admit someone to hospital', was coined in the late nineteenth century, and the abstract noun 'hospitalization' followed by adding -ation to name the act or state of being admitted. The same hospes root quietly survives in the friendly words 'host', 'hospitable', and 'hospitality', so the medical sense sits oddly far from its welcoming origin. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle: the schwa-heavy '-pita-l-iza-' stretch hides which vowels go where, while the -ization ending must keep its z.

How the word is built

• hospital (from Latin hospitalis: relating to a guest or host)
• -ize (verb-forming suffix: to make or put into)
• -ation (noun suffix: the act or result)

British and American spelling

Hospitalization is the American spelling. British English spells it hospitalisation.