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third-rate hotel

third-rate hotel

1 3.1
A hotel with poor rooms and bad service
  • noun
  • Informal
translation icon : hotel de tercera categoría
  • Many tourists accidentally book a third-rate hotel and regret their decision upon arrival.

Examples

  • We stayed at a third-rate hotel during our vacation.

  • After reading the reviews, we decided to avoid any third-rate hotel during our business trip.

  • She complained that the third-rate hotel had dirty sheets and unfriendly staff.

  • I would never recommend a third-rate hotel to anyone!

  • The travelers were disappointed when they arrived at the third-rate hotel with stained carpets and broken furniture.

  • After a long journey, they chose to stay in a third-rate hotel to save money, but the service was terrible.

  • Despite its low price, the third-rate hotel offered very few amenities and was not clean.

Synonyms

fleabag
vsthird-rate hotel
  • Informal
9 8.9

A cheap, dirty hotel in bad condition

is about general poor quality rather than dirtiness or bad upkeep
fourth-rate establishment
vsthird-rate hotel
  • US
7.7

A business or place of very low quality with bad service and dirty conditions

is limited to poor places to stay rather than any business

Antonyms

49 3.8

Very high quality or done very well

How Good

luxury
322 4.2
hotel
1.0
tourist class
  • Archaic
3.2
third-rate hotel
  • Informal
1 3.1
run-down
15 4.5

Surface Forms

Morphology

third-rate + hotel

The meaning 'a hotel of poor quality' is directly and transparently derivable from the adjective 'third-rate' (substandard) combined with 'hotel' (place for lodging). This is a straightforward adjective + noun composition that follows regular evaluative gradation and is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily understand it.

Etymology

Third-rate hotel comes from old ratings that called the best places 'first-rate' and put worse ones in lower groups, so being third meant lower quality. So, a third-rate hotel means a hotel of 'low quality' with poor rooms or bad service.