Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Quest

Quest (kwĕst), n. [OF. queste, F. quête, fr. L. quaerere, quaesitum, to seek for, to ask. Cf. Query, Question.] 1. The act of seeking, or looking after anything; attempt to find or obtain; search; pursuit; as, to rove in quest of game, of a lost child, of property, etc.

Upon an hard adventure yet in quest. Spenser.

Cease your quest of love. Shak.

There ended was his quest, there ceased his care. Milton.

2. Request; desire; solicitation.

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

3. Those who make search or inquiry, taken collectively.

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

4. Inquest; jury of inquest.

What lawful quest have given their verdict ? Shak.

Quest, v. t. [Cf. OF. quester, F. quêter. See Quest, n.] To search for; to examine. [R.] Sir T. Herbert.

Quest, v. i. To go on a quest; to make a search; to go in pursuit; to beg. [R.]

If his questing had been unsuccessful, he appeased the rage of hunger with some scraps of broken meat. Macaulay.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.