caravanserai

The interior of Saʿd al-Saltaneh Caravanserai (sense 1) in Qazvin, Iran.

The view from the courtyard of the Shah Abbas Caravanserai (sense 1), now a hotel, in Isfahan, Iran.

The plan of a Safavid caravanserai (sense 1) in Karaj, Iran, showing its interior courtyard.

Borrowed:[1]

• from Middle French carvansera, carvassera (modern French caravansérail, carauanserrail (obsolete), caravansara (obsolete)); or
• directly from its etymon Ottoman Turkish كاروانسَرای (karvanseray), كَروانسَرای (kervanseray) (modern Turkish kervansaray), from Old Anatolian Turkish [script needed] (kārvān-serā); or
• directly from its etymon Persian کاروانسرای (kârvânsarây), from کاروان (kârvân, “caravan; convoy”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ker- (“army”)) + سرای (sarây, “courtyard, hall; dwelling, house; inn; mansion, palace”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *terh₂- (“to cross over; to pass through; to overcome”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌkæɹəˈvænsəɹaɪ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌkɛɹəˈvænsəˌɹaɪ/
• Hyphenation: ca‧ra‧van‧ser‧ai

caravanserai (plural caravanserais)

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.
   • 1712 February 11 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “THURSDAY, January 31, 1711–1712”, in The Spectator, number 289; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume III, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC, pages 445–446:

     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.'

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • 1801, Robert Southey, “The Fifth Book”, in Thalaba the Destroyer, volume I, London: […] [F]or T[homas] N[orton] Longman and O[wen] Rees, […], by Biggs and Cottle, […], →OCLC, page 269:

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

   • 1855, Richard F[rancis] Burton, “Life in the Wakálah”, in Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah. […], volume I (El-Misr), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 60:

     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.

   • 1859, Omar Khayyam, “Quatrain XVI”, in [Edward FitzGerald], transl., Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia. […], facsimile edition, London: Bernard Quaritch, […], →OCLC, page 4:

     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.

   • 1990, Peter Hopkirk, “Rehearsal for the Great Game”, in The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia, London: John Murray, published 1991, →ISBN, page 52:

     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.

   • 1997, Ayṣil Tükel Yavuz, “The Concepts that Shape Anatolian Seljuq Caravanserais”, in Gülru Necipoğlu, editor, Muqarnas XIV: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World, volume XIV, Leiden: E[vert] J[an] Brill, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 80 and 81:

     [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.

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).
   • 1760, Mr. Yorick [pseudonym; Laurence Sterne], “Sermon II. The House of Feasting and the House of Mourning Described.”, in The Sermons of Mr. Yorick, volume I, London: […] R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley […], →OCLC, page 26:

     Conſider, I beſeech you, vvhat proviſion and accommodation, the Author of our being has prepared for us, that vve might not go on our vvay ſorrovving—hovv many caravanſera's of reſt—vvhat povvers and faculties he has given us for taking it—vvhat apt objects he has placed in our vvay to entertain us; […]

   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVIII, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 266:

     They stopped at the most memorable places, and at last arrived at Rome, where a princess vacated her palace for their accommodation and so many louis-d'or a-month. Rome, once the mistress, is now the caravanseray of the world.

   • 1891, George W[ashington] Cullum, “Period from July 31, 1812, to July 28, 1817. Brevet Brig.-General Joseph G[ardner] Swift, Superintendent.”, in Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. […], 3rd edition, volume III (Nos. 2001 to 3384), Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC, page 617:

     Casting my fortunes at Mrs. Thompson's, I soon became initiated into the etiquette and usage of that polite caravansary; and I now write of that era of two-pronged forks, and when "saveall" was the choicest dish, and the observances at the table not altogether Chesterfieldian.

   • 1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XXXIV, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC, page 253:

     When we got to Cromley, it was too early to go to the spike, and we walked several miles farther, to a plantation beside a meadow, where one could sit down. It was a regular caravanserai of tramps—one could tell it by the worn grass and the sodden newspaper and rusty cans that they had left behind.

   • 1952 May, George Santayana, “I Like to Be a Stranger”, in Edward Augustus Weeks, editor, The Atlantic‎, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-02-16, section 2:

     Only in Paris, a cosmopolitan caravansary in itself, did Americans and other foreigners fall nicely into the picture and spoil nothing in the charm of the place.

3. (by extension) Synonym of caravan (“a convoy of travellers, their cargo and vehicles, and pack animals”)
   • 1938, Virginia Woolf, “Part Two”, in Three Guineas, London: The Hogarth Press, […], →OCLC, page 111:

     There they go, our brothers who have been educated at public schools and universities, mounting those steps, passing in and out of those doors, […]. It is a solemn sight always—a procession, like a caravanserai crossing a desert.

4. (by extension, archaic) A hostelry, an inn; also (humorous), an (upscale) hotel.
   • 1838, “a Pedestrian” [pseudonym], “Cork”, in A Guide to the Lakes of Killarney and the South of Ireland, London: J. Onwhyn, […], →OCLC, page 56:

     By the bye it is as well to mention, for the benefit of the inexperienced, that there are no Inns in Ireland; all are hotels, from the lowest road cabin to the splendid caravanserai, with all its appurtenances of luxury and ease.

   • 1940, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 27, in Bethel Merriday, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Company, →OCLC, page 281:

     Six anxious inquiries of marble-fronted-hotel clerks about rates; and twice when she angrily made it plain she couldn't afford it, and quit the caravanserai where Andy and Mahala and Mrs Boyle were to loll in kitchenette-bedizened splendor and hunted up a smaller hotel that looked like a private house with obesity.

• caravansarai, caravanseray, caravansaray (variant spellings)
• caravansary, caravansery (anglicizations after -ary, -ery)

• (inn for caravans): See Thesaurus:lodging place

• caravanserial (obsolete, rare)

• caravan

• caravanserai on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Eric Partridge (1966) “caravan; caravanserai, anglicized as caravansary”, in Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th edition, Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, published 2006, →ISBN, page 728.
• Eleanor Sims (1978) “Trade and Travel: Markets and Caravanserais”, in George Michell, editor, Architecture of the Islamic World – Its History and Social Meaning […], London: Thames and Hudson, →ISBN, pages 80–111.
• Robert Hillenbrand (1994) “The Caravanserai”, in Islamic Architecture: Form, Function and Meaning, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN.

Borrowed from French caravansérail, from Ottoman Turkish كاروانسَرای (karvanseray), كَروانسَرای (kervanseray), from Persian کاروانسرای (kârvânsarây), from کاروان (kârvân, “caravan”) + سرای (sarây, “courtyard; dwelling; palace”). Doublet of carvasara.

caravanserai n (plural caravanseraiuri)

1. caravanserai