Airbnb

• airbnb, AirBnB

Shortening of the company's former name AirBed & Breakfast, coined by co-founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia in 2007, who originally came up with the idea of putting an air mattress in their living room and turning it into a bed and breakfast. Equivalent to air +‎ B&B (“bed and breakfast”).

• IPA^(key): /ˌɛəɹˌbiːɛnˈbiː/
• Rhymes: -iː

Airbnb

1. (trademark) An American vacation rental online marketplace company based in San Francisco, California, founded in 2008.

Airbnb (countable and uncountable, plural Airbnbs)

1. (uncountable) The system of renting out apartments by means of an intermediary website, popularized by the company of the same name.
   • 2019, Jane Linfoot, A Cosy Christmas in Cornwall:

     It's more of an Airbnb model than a proper let.

   • 2020, Symon He, James Svetec, Airbnb For Dummies:

     Congratulations, you're fully qualified to be part of the Airbnb revolution! Whether you're looking to start hosting your property or want to grow your existing reputation and profits, this is the perfect destination for you.

   • 2020, Albert Prember, Airbnb Rental Investing:

     The market space in Airbnb is becoming more competitive as big money players are entering the game of home-sharing.

2. (countable) An apartment offered for renting by means of this system.

   I am staying at an Airbnb for the summer.

   • 2019, Maxine Morrey, Coming Home to Wishington Bay:

     The thought of turning it into an Airbnb had crossed my mind – albeit only fleetingly.

   • 2019, Dave Hill, Parking the Moose:

     I'd found an Airbnb not far from the university and, after a quick nap, met up again with Trudy, who had promised to show me the Regina ropes.

   • 2021, Ed James, Before She Wakes:

     Tasteful, from a high-end store, not standard-issue teenager stuff. It was like they were living in a hotel or an Airbnb.

Airbnb (third-person singular simple present Airbnbs or Airbnb's, present participle Airbnbing or Airbnb'ing, simple past and past participle Airbnbed or Airbnb'ed or Airbnb'd)

1. (transitive, neologism) To rent (an apartment) by Airbnb or similar means, whether as a lessor or a lessee.
   • 2013 July 20, Thomas L. Friedman, “Welcome to the ‘Sharing Economy’”, in The New York Times‎:

     Jamie Wong […] told me: “I moved out of my apartment in central San Francisco, rented a cheaper annex in a friend’s home, and ‘airbnb-ed’ my apartment for $200 a night and earned about $20,000 in a year. It enabled me to bootstrap my start-up. Airbnb was our first round of funding!”

   • 2015 May 16, Biz Carson, “The fight between Airbnb and San Francisco just got nastier”, in Business Insider‎:

     "In neighborhoods like the Mission, which has become ground zero for displacement, you see that as high as 40 percent of the housing stock that could be rented is being Airbnb'ed," said Supervisor David Campos in an interview.

   • 2017 May 8, Nathan Heller, “Is the Gig Economy Working?”, in The New Yorker‎:

     By Airbnb-ing out their apartment one week a month, Connors and her roommate could clear their four-thousand-dollar rent. […] Suzette Sundae, a musician wearing a fifties-style swing dress and a white cardigan over her tattoos, said that she ran a vintage-clothing store in Park Slope. When the store’s traffic fell off, she had Airbnb-ed her home.

   • 2017 July 4, Louise Bruton, “George Ezra: 'It's 2am, someone puts on War On Drugs and says "but no . . . really listen" ’”, in The Irish Times‎:

     His response to this underlying anxiety was to escape to Barcelona, a city he had previously written a love song for, where he AirBnBed a flat with the owner (“Like, no one ever does that”). With the opportunity to be anonymous, he could look after himself.

   • 2018, Grace Timothy, Lost in Motherhood:

     Because two lines mean, yeh, you are all kinds of pregnant. You've basically AirBNB'ed your womb; another human being is setting up camp in your innards.

2. (intransitive, neologism) To pursue this activity by Airbnb or similar means, whether as a lessor or a lessee.
   • 2015 July 30, Josh Duboff, “Mariah Carey Is Renting an Airbnb for $10,000 a Night”, in Vanity Fair‎:

     Somehow, we imagine, Mariah Carey’s Airbnb experience is going to be slightly different. Carey is, per Page Six, going to be renting a $10,000-per-night property on Malibu’s “Billionaires’ Beach,” […] Page Six says that she will be Airbnb-ing at least until the end of August, when she leaves for a concert in Israel.

   • 2020, Juliet B. Schor, After the Gig: How the Sharing Economy Got Hijacked and How to Win It Back, Oakland, CA: University of California Press, →ISBN, page 121:

     After his lawyer friend forced him to stop hosting, he bought his own home in the area. He was renovating it to turn it into the perfect upscale listing. […] By coincidence, Mark's neighbor was also Airbnb-ing, charging $550 a night for a nearly identical place. Mark was expecting to earn at least that much.

   • 2020 October 28, Tom Lanham, “Rosanne Cash Calls Us to "Crawl into the Promised Land"”, in Paste‎:

     In fact, I’m at my daughter’s house in Nashville—we came down here and quarantined for 12 days, Airbnb’ed, and moved into her house, because she’s about to give birth any second. And I brought my sewing with me—I’m excited for the future.

• Barbin, Brabin, rabbin