Emily Dickinson Lexicon
Definition for HOS'PI-TAL-ER
HOS'PI-TAL-ER, n. [from hospital.]
Properly, one residing in a hospital for the purpose of receiving the poor and strangers. The hospitalers were an order of knights who built a hospital at Jerusalem for pilgrims. They were called knights of St. John, and are the same as the knights of Malta. Encyc.
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