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vest

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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See also: Vest, věst, vést, and vešt

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Etymology

From French veste (“a vest, jacket”), from Latin vestis (“a garment, gown, robe, vestment, clothing, vesture”), from Proto-Indo-European *wéstis, from *wes- (“to be dressed”) (English wear). Cognate with Sanskrit वस्त्र (vastra) and Spanish vestir.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /vɛst/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɛst

Noun

vest (plural vests)

  1. (Canada, US) A sleeveless garment that buttons down the front, worn over a shirt, and often as part of a suit; a waistcoat.
    Synonym: (Britain) waistcoat
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter X, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      The Jones man was looking at her hard. Now he reached into the hatch of his vest and fetched out a couple of cigars, everlasting big ones, with gilt bands on them.
  2. (British) A sleeveless garment, often with a low-cut neck, usually worn under a shirt or blouse.
    Synonyms: singlet, (US) tank top, (US) undershirt
  3. A sleeveless top, typically with identifying colours or logos, worn by an athlete or member of a sports team.
  4. Any sleeveless outer garment, often for a purpose such as identification, safety, or storage.
    • 2010, Thomas Mullen, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, Random House, →ISBN, page 162:
      He gripped some of the shreds and pulled off his vest and the shirt beneath it, his clothing disintegrating around him. What in the hell point was there in wearing a twenty-five-pound bulletproof vest if you could still get gunned to death?
  5. A vestment.
  6. Clothing generally; array; garb.
    • 1800, William Wordsworth, [unnamed poem] (classified under Inscriptions)
      Not seldom, clad in radiant vest / Deceitfully goes forth the morn.
  7. (now rare) A loose robe or outer garment worn historically by men in Arab or Middle Eastern countries.

Hyponyms

  • (sleeveless outergarment): safety vest, scrimmage vest, fishing vest

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

vest (third-person singular simple present vests, present participle vesting, simple past and past participle vested)

  1. (chiefly passive) To clothe with, or as with, a vestment, or garment; to dress; to robe; to cover, surround, or encompass closely.
    • 1673, John Milton, Methought I Saw my Late Espoused Saint:
      Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.
    • 1697, John Dryden, Aeneid:
      With ether vested, and a purple sky.
  2. To clothe with authority, power, etc.; to put in possession; to invest; to furnish; to endow; followed by with and the thing conferred.
    to vest a court with power to try cases of life and death
    • c. 1718, Matthew Prior, To Mr. Howard - An Ode:
      Had thy poor breast receiv’d an equal pain; / Had I been vested with the monarch’s power; / Thou must have sigh’d, unlucky youth, in vain; / Nor from my bounty hadst thou found a cure.
  3. To place or give into the possession or discretion of some person or authority; to commit to another; with in before the possessor.
    The power of life and death is vested in the king, or in the courts.
  4. (law) To clothe with possession; also, to give a person an immediate fixed right of present or future enjoyment of.
    to vest a person with an estate
    an estate is vested in possession
  5. (law, intransitive) (of an inheritance or a trust fund) To devolve upon the person currently entitled when a prior interest has ended.
    Upon the death of the Sovereign the Crown automatically vests in the next heir without the need of coronation or other formality.
  6. (finance, intransitive) To become vested, to become permanent.
    My pension vests at the end of the month and then I can take it with me when I quit.
    • 2005, Kaye A. Thomas, Consider Your Options, page 104:
      If you doubt that you'll stick around at the company long enough for your options to vest, you should discount the value for that uncertainty as well.
    • 2007, Ransey Guy Cole, Jr. (United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit), Roger Miller Music, Inc. v. Sony ATV Publishing, LLC
      Sony interpreted 17 U.S.C. § 304 as requiring that the author be alive at the start of the copyright renewal term for the author’s prior assignments to vest.
    • 2025 August 4, Mike Isaac, “A.I. Has Ushered in Silicon Valley’s ‘Hard Tech’ Era”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 4 August 2025:
      They were, they said tipsily, essentially being paid to do nothing while earning out — or “vesting” — their stock grants. “Rest and vest,” the techies said, in between sips of beer.
  7. (obsolete) To invest; to put.
    to vest money in goods, land, or houses

Further reading

Anagrams

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Danish

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Old Norse vestr, from Proto-Germanic *westrą.

Noun

vest c (singular definite vesten, not used in plural form)

  1. the west
Inflection
More information common gender, singular ...
Derived terms

Adverb

vest

  1. toward the west, westwards

Etymology 2

From French veste.

Noun

vest c (singular definite vesten, plural indefinite veste)

  1. A vest.
Inflection
More information common gender, singular ...

References

See also

compass points:  [edit]

nordvest nord nordøst
vest Thumb øst
sydvest syd sydøst
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Dutch

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch vest, veste. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Noun

vest f (plural vesten, diminutive vestje n)

  1. fortified wall, city wall
  2. moat
  3. boulevard
Alternative forms

Etymology 2

Borrowed from French veste, from Italian veste, from Latin vestis.

Noun

vest n (plural vesten, diminutive vestje n)

  1. vest, cardigan, waistcoat
Derived terms

German

Adjective

vest

  1. obsolete spelling of fest

Latvian

Etymology

Inherited from Proto-Balto-Slavic *westéi. Cognate with Lithuanian vesti, Polish wieść, Russian вести (vesti), Slovene vesti.

Verb

vest (transitive or intransitive, 1st conjugation, present vedu, ved, ved, past vedu)

  1. to lead

Conjugation

More information indicative (īstenības izteiksme), imperative (pavēles izteiksme) ...

Derived terms

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Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology 1

From Danish vest, from Old Norse vestr, from Proto-Germanic *westrą.

Noun

vest n (abbreviation V) (indeclinable)

  2. west (compass point)
Antonyms
Derived terms
Norwegian Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia no
Norwegian Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia no

Etymology 2

From Latin vestis, via French [Term?] and Italian [Term?].

Noun

vest m (definite singular vesten, indefinite plural vester, definite plural vestene)

  2. a waistcoat
Derived terms
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Norwegian Nynorsk

Norwegian Nynorsk Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia nn

Etymology 1

From Old Norse vestr, from Proto-Germanic *westrą.

Noun

vest n (indeclinable) (abbreviation: V)

  1. west (compass point)
Antonyms
Derived terms
Norwegian Nynorsk Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia nn

Etymology 2

From Latin vestis, via French and Italian.

Noun

vest m (definite singular vesten, indefinite plural vestar, definite plural vestane)

  1. a waistcoat
Derived terms
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Old Swedish

Verb

vēst

  1. second-person present indicative of vita

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from German West.

Noun

vest n (uncountable)

  1. west
    Synonyms: apus, asfințit, occident

Declension

More information singular only, indefinite ...

Coordinate terms

compass points (French/Germanic origin): puncte cardinale:  [edit]

nord-vest nord nord-est
vest Thumb est
sud-vest sud sud-est

Romansch

Etymology

From a Germanic language.

Noun

vest m

  1. west

Antonyms

Derived terms

Serbo-Croatian

Alternative forms

Etymology

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *věstь, from Proto-Balto-Slavic *waid-, from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to see, know, perceive”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ʋêːst/
  • Hyphenation: vest

Noun

vȇst f (Cyrillic spelling ве̑ст)

  1. report, news
    Da li si mu kazala vesti? ― Did you tell him the news?

Declension

More information singular, plural ...

Derived terms

References

  • “vest”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025
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Slovene

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *věstь.

Pronunciation

Noun

vẹ̑st f

  1. conscience

Declension

The diacritics used in this section of the entry are non-tonal. If you are a native tonal speaker, please help by adding the tonal marks.
More information Feminine, i-stem, long mixed accent, nom. sing. ...

Further reading

  • “vest”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU, portal Fran
  • “vest”, in Termania, Amebis
  • See also the general references

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