Forms: (6 cauarzara), 7 carauansara, car(r)avans-raw, karavan serai, quervanseray, 8 caravanserie, 8–9 caravansera, -sary, 9 caravansery, (caravensary), 8– caravanserai. [ult. a. Per. kārwān-sarāī, f. kārwān caravan + sarāī, or sarā palace, mansion, inn. In F. caravanséraï, Pg. caravançara. The endings -ary, -ery, are due to popular analogy.]
A kind of inn in Eastern countries where caravans put up, being a large quadrangular building with a spacious court in the middle.
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. I. 196. We lay in one of the great Cauarzaras [? caruanzaras], that were built by Mahomet Bassha with so many goodly commodities.
1615. trans. De Monfart’s Surv. E. Indies, 8. The Sophie hath caused to bee erected certaine … huge lodgings … called Carauan-sara or Surroyes, for the benefit of Carauanes.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 51. Where is a pretty Carrauans-raw.
1582. Wheler, Journ. Greece, II. 192. Publick Buildings they call Karavan Serais, or Kans.
1687. A. Lovell, trans. Thevenot’s Trav., III. I. v. 8. I went to lodge in a Quervanseray.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 289, ¶ 9. A house that changes its inhabitants so often, and receives such a perpetual succession of guests, is not a Palace but a Caravansary.
1798. T. Maurice, Hindostan, IV. iii. (1820), II. 252. The birth of Christ [in] … the stable of the caravansera … in the lowly village of Bethlehem.
1801. Southey, Thalaba, V. viii. Not in sumptuous Caravansery.
1855. Milman, Lat. Chr. (1864), IV. VII. vi. 170. In Jerusalem there were public caravansaries.
b. transf. and fig.
1760. Sterne, Serm. Yorick, III. 17. What provision the Author of our being has prepared … how many caravanseras of rest!
1805. Foster, Ess., I. vii. 88. The man whose mind has been a kind of caravansera of opinions.
1864. Sala, in Daily Tel., 13 Oct., 5/5. In the palatial caravanserais of New York … you must expect to pay from ten to thirty dollars per diem for the privilege of isolation.
Hence Caravanserial a.
1864. Sala, in Daily Tel., 13 Oct., 5/1. They [hotels at Saratoga Springs] … [and] their caravanserial congeners in other parts of the United States.
