histv1: †caravanserai: mC8 mentioned (according to Lane) by al-Layṯ b. Naṣr b. Sayyār al-Ḫurasānī with the meaning ‘(in the dialect of the people of Syria) building of the kind called ↗ḫān, where men alight and lodge, [and in which they deposit their goods], of the ḫānāt that are in the roads, and in the cities’ (Lane VI: 2449). According to Pedani2013, the word appeared in Arabic texts by C9. mC9? Galen SM X 2,2 wa-ʔaḫbaranī baʕḍu ʔahli ’l-ṣidqi bal ʕiddatun minhum ʔannahum ʔakalū fī baʕḍi ’l-fanādiqi ʔamrāqan ṭayyibatan bi-luḥūmin maṭbūḫatin fīhā ‘some reliable people, quite a number of them even, told me that they had eaten in some funduq delicious soups with meat cooked in them’(< Grk allà kaì diēgouménōn tinṓn ḗkousa pistṓn anthrṓpōn hedēdokénai mèn én tini pandokheíō zōmón dapsilē̂ metà kreō̂n hēdístōn) (Ullmann2002: 493). – With this meaning the word entered into Western languages (cf., e.g., Ital fondaco ‘warehouse’) (ibid.).
v2: Should one separate the meaning ‘hostel, inn, hotel’ [when used without reference to trading, i.e., having lost the function of a warehouse]? The article by O’Meara mentions funduq, ↗ḫān, ↗samsaraẗ or ↗wakālaẗ as giving more or less the same meaning, depending on the region.