quest

From Middle English quest, queste; partly from Anglo-Norman queste, Old French queste (“acquisition, search, hunt”), and partly from their source, Latin quaesta (“tribute, tax, inquiry, search”), noun use of quaesita, the feminine past participle of quaerere (“to ask, seek”).

• IPA^(key): /kwɛst/, enPR: kwĕst

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛst

quest (plural quests)

1. A journey or effort in pursuit of a goal (often lengthy, ambitious, or fervent); a mission.
   • William Shakespeare

     Cease your quest of love.

   • 2013 January 1, Katie L. Burke, “Ecological Dependency”, in American Scientist‎, volume 101, number 1, page 64:

     In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature, David Quammen looks at the natural world from yet another angle: the search for the next human pandemic, what epidemiologists call “the next big one.” His quest leads him around the world to study a variety of suspect zoonoses—animal-hosted pathogens that infect humans.

2. The act of seeking, or looking after anything; attempt to find or obtain; search; pursuit.

   to rove in quest of game, of a lost child, of property, etc.

3. (obsolete) Request; desire; solicitation.
   • Herbert

     Gad not abroad at every quest and call / Of an untrained hope or passion.

4. (obsolete) A group of people making search or inquiry.
   • William Shakespeare

     The senate hath sent about three several quests to search you out.

5. (obsolete) Inquest; jury of inquest.
   • 1609, Wiiliam Shakespeare, Sonnet 46"

     To 'cide this title is impannelèd

     A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart, 10

     And by their verdict is determined

     The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part […] }

• sidequest

quest (third-person singular simple present quests, present participle questing, simple past and past participle quested)

1. To seek or pursue a goal; to undertake a mission or job.
2. To search for; to examine.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Sir T. Herbert to this entry?)

3. (entomology, of a tick) To locate and attach to a host animal.

• queste, qwest, qwhest

Partly from Anglo-Norman queste, Old French queste, and partly from their source, Latin quaesta.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkwɛst(ə)/

quest (plural questes)

1. (Late Middle English) A legal inquest or investigation; a session of court.
2. (Late Middle English) A group or body of jurors
3. (rare) A body of judges or other individuals commissioned to make a decision or verdict
4. (rare) The decision or verdict reached by such a body of judges.
5. (rare) A quest, mission, or search.
   1. (rare) The finding of prey by hunting dogs during a hunt.
   2. (rare, Late Middle English) The howling upon finding prey by hunting dogs during a hunt.
6. (rare, Late Middle English) A petition or asking.

• conquest
• enquest
• questen
• questioun
• questor
• request

• English: quest
• Scots: quest

• “quest(e (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-2.

From Vulgar Latin *eccu istu, from Latin eccum istum. Compare Italian questo.

quest (feminine singular questa)

1. this one, this

   Quest l'è un mond zneno, e nost mond.

   This is a small world, our world.

   Questa l'è una cittadina bela.

   This is a beautiful city.

From Vulgar Latin *eccu istu, from Latin eccum istum. Compare Italian questo.

quest

1. this