A motor hotel, or motel for short (also known as motor inn, motor court, motor lodge, tourist lodge, cottage court, auto camps, tourist home, tourist cabins, auto cabins, cabin camps, cabin court, or auto court), is a hotel designed for motorists, and usually has a parking area for motor vehicles. Entering dictionaries after World War II, the word motel, coined in 1925 as a portmanteau of motor and hotel or motorists' hotel, referred initially to a type of hotel consisting of a single building of connected rooms whose doors faced a parking lot and, in some circumstances, a common area; ...