Quest
nounA long or determined search for something, or an expedition in pursuit of a goal.
How to spell quest
5 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce quest
What does quest mean?
- nounA long or determined search for something, or an expedition in pursuit of a goal.
- verbTo search or seek for something with effort and determination.
Quest in a sentence
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noun
Her quest for the perfect apartment took most of the summer.
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verb
The researchers continue to quest after a cheaper source of clean energy.
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noun
The documentary follows one family's quest to trace their ancestry.
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verb
Many entrepreneurs quest endlessly for their next big idea.
Where does quest come from?
Language of origin: Latin
The word comes from the Latin verb quaerere, which meant 'to seek, to ask, or to search for', and its past participle quaesita. In the everyday Latin of the late Roman world this developed into a noun queste, meaning a search or a hunt, and that form passed into Old French. English borrowed it in the 1300s, when it was strongly tied to the world of medieval romance: a knight's quest was a formal expedition in pursuit of something, such as the Holy Grail. The same quaerere root quietly fuels a whole family of familiar English words, including 'question', 'inquire', 'require', and 'conquer', all of which carry the idea of seeking or asking. Because the spelling sits so closely with 'question', adults rarely stumble over it, and the qu- beginning faithfully reflects the Latin source.
How the word is built
- quer-/quest- (from Latin quaerere: to seek, ask)
- noun ending
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