the.com/innkeeper
part bartender, part bouncer, part priest hearing confessions over the last room available
means A person who owns or manages an inn, providing lodging, food, and drink to travelers.
from A transparent compound of "inn" plus "keeper." "Inn" comes from Old English "inn," meaning a dwelling or lodging place, itself rooted in the preposition "in" — literally the place you go inside. "Keeper" is from "keep," Old English "cepan," to seize, guard, or attend to. So an innkeeper is, plainly, one who keeps the inn — and the word has held that same shape for centuries, as travelers have always needed a roof and someone to guard it.
- ancient gig
- Babylonian law set rules for innkeepers 3,700 years ago
- often women
- medieval English alewives and innkeepers were frequently female
- legal duty
- common law obliged them to admit any decent traveler
- named everywhere
- countless pub surnames trace back to the trade
- no vacancy
- the world's most famous one had no room