gest

noun

ˈjest 

variants or geste

1

: a tale of adventures

especially : a romance in verse

2

: adventure, exploit

knightly gests

Did you know?

"Let the Queen know of our gests," Antony instructs his men after a hard-won victory on the battlefield in William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Great deeds and heroic acts have been the stuff of gests since medieval days; in fact, the word is more often associated with knights and heroes of old than with modern adventurers. We may not be hearing about many 21st century gests, but we do frequently encounter other relatives of the word. Gest traces to Latin gestus, the past participle of the verb gerere, which means "to wage," "to bear," or "to carry," among other things. That Latin verb gave us stoutly enduring words like gesture, ingest, jest, register, and suggest.

Synonyms

• adventure
• emprise
• experience
• exploit
• happening
• time

Examples of gest in a Sentence

before packing it all in, he was looking for one grand gest that would serve as a fitting finale for his life

Word History

Etymology

Middle English gest, geste, jeste — more at jest entry 1

First Known Use

13th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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