Meaning

(chiefly historical) A roadside inn, usually having a central courtyard where caravans (see sense 3) can rest, providing accommodation for travellers along trade routes in Asia and North Africa..

Definitions by Sense

1. (chiefly historical) A roadside inn, usually having a central courtyard where caravans (see sense 3) can rest, providing accommodation for travellers along trade routes in Asia and North Africa.
2. (by extension) A place resembling a caravanserai (sense 1) as being a place for resting temporarily, or a meeting place (especially one that is busy, or where people of different cultures encounter each other).
3. (by extension) Synonym of caravan (“a convoy of travellers, their cargo and vehicles, and pack animals”).
4. (by extension, archaic) A hostelry, an inn; also (humorous), an (upscale) hotel.

Example Sentences

A dervise travelling through Tartary, being arrived at the town of Balk, went into the king's palace by mistake, as thinking it to be a public inn, or caravansary. […] It happened that the king himself passed through the gallery during this debate, and, smiling at the mistake of the dervise, asked him how he could possibly be so dull as not to distinguish a palace from a caravansary? […] 'Ah, Sir,' said the dervise, a house that changes its inhabitants so often, and receives such a perpetual succession of guests, is not a palace, but a caravansary.'

But not in sumptuous Caravansary / The adventurer idles there, / Nor satiates wonder with her pomp and wealth; […]

The "wakálah," as the caravanserai or khan is called in Egypt, combines the offices of hotel, lodging house, and store. It is at Cairo, as at Constantinople, a massive pile of buildings surrounding a quadrangular "hosh" or court-yard.

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai / Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day, / How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp / Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.

Eight days later, after leaving the desert and riding through neatly tended villages and snow-capped mountain scenery, he arrived there, hiring himself a room in a caravanserai near the bazaar.

[page 80] Research over the last thirty-five years suggests that further research is likely to increase the number of known caravanserais in a good state of preservation. Unfortunately the majority of the caravanserais either had no founding inscription or it has since disappeared, and of the ones that do exist not all mention the type of building. […] [page 81] Caravanserais served caravans, but they also had a multitude of other functions. It is generally agreed that they continued the function of the ribats in Transoxania, and therefore it is taken for granted that they had military uses.

Word Forms

• caravanserais
• caravansarai
• caravanseray
• caravansaray
• caravansary
• caravansery

Synonyms for caravanserai

Related Words

When Should You Use Caravanserai?

Use caravanserai when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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