vest

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.

• IPA^(key): /vɛst/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛst

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.
   • 1700, John Dryden, Palamon and Arcite:

     In state attended by her maiden train, / Who bore the vests that holy rites require.

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.

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

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.

   • 1689 December (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], Two Treatises of Government: […], London: […] Awnsham Churchill, […], →OCLC:
     , Book I

     Empire and dominion […] was vested in him.

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

   • 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC:

     For the right of the crown vests […] upon his heir.

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. (financial, 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.

7. (obsolete) To invest; to put.

   to vest money in goods, land, or houses

• “vest”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “vest”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “vest”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• ETVs, vets, EVTs, TVEs

• IPA^(key): /vɛst/, [ʋɛsd̥]

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

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

1. the west

• nordvest
• sydvest

vest

1. toward the west, westwards

From French veste.

vest c (singular definite vesten, plural indefinite veste)

1. A vest.

• “vest” in Den Danske Ordbog

compass points:  ^[edit]

nordvest	nord	nordøst
vest		øst
sydvest	syd	sydøst

• IPA^(key): /vɛst/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: vest
• Rhymes: -ɛst

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

vest f (plural vesten, diminutive vestje n)

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

• veste

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

vest n (plural vesten, diminutive vestje n)

1. vest, cardigan, waistcoat

vest

1. obsolete spelling of fest

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

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

1. to lead

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

vest n (abbreviation V) (indeclinable)

2. west (compass point)

• øst

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

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

2. a waistcoat

• redningsvest

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

vest n (indeclinable) (abbreviation: V)

1. west (compass point)

• aust

From Latin vestis, via French and Italian.

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

1. a waistcoat

• redningsvest

vēst

1. second-person present indicative of vita

Borrowed from German West.

vest n (uncountable)

1. west

   Synonyms: apus, asfințit, occident

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

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

From a Germanic language.

vest m

1. west

• ost
• oriaint

• nordvest
• sidvest

• nord
• sid
• nordost
• sidost

• vijȇst (Ijekavian)

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

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

vȇst f (Cyrillic spelling ве̑ст)

1. report, news

   Da li si mu kazala vesti? ― Did you tell him the news?

• pȍvēst

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

From Proto-Slavic *věstь.

• IPA^(key): /ʋéːst/

vẹ̑st f

1. conscience

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.

Feminine, i-stem, long mixed accent
nom. sing.	vést
gen. sing.	vestí
	singular	dual	plural
nominative (imenovȃlnik)	vést	vestí	vestí
genitive (rodȋlnik)	vestí	vestí	vestí
dative (dajȃlnik)	vésti	vestéma	vestém
accusative (tožȋlnik)	vést	vestí	vestí
locative (mẹ̑stnik)	vésti	vestéh	vestéh
instrumental (orọ̑dnik)	vestjó	vestéma	vestmí

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