Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act or an instance of seeking or pursuing something; a search.
  • noun An expedition undertaken in medieval romance by a knight in order to perform a prescribed feat.
  • noun An inquest.
  • noun A jury appointed to take part in an inquest.
  • intransitive verb To search for something.
  • intransitive verb To go on a quest.
  • intransitive verb To search for game or bay when sighting game, as a hound.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To go in search; make search or inquiry; pursue.
  • To go begging.
  • To give tongue, as a dog on the scent of game.
  • To search or seek for; inquire into or examine.
  • To announce by giving tongue, as a dog.
  • noun The act of seeking; search; pursuit; suit.
  • noun An act of searching or seeking, as for a particular object: as, the quest of the holy grail.
  • noun A body of searchers collectively; a searching party.
  • noun Inquiry; examination.
  • noun Request; desire; solicitation; prayer; demand.
  • noun A jury of inquest; a sworn body of examiners; also, an inquest.
  • noun Same as queest.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb rare To search for; to examine.
  • intransitive verb rare To go on a quest; to make a search; to go in pursuit; to beg.
  • noun The act of seeking, or looking after anything; attempt to find or obtain; search; pursuit
  • noun Request; desire; solicitation.
  • noun Those who make search or inquiry, taken collectively.
  • noun Inquest; jury of inquest.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A journey or effort in pursuit of a goal (often lengthy, ambitious, or fervent); a mission.
  • verb To seek or pursue a goal; to undertake a mission or job.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb search the trail of (game)
  • noun a search for an alternative that meets cognitive criteria
  • verb seek alms, as for religious purposes
  • verb bark with prolonged noises, of dogs
  • verb make a search (for)
  • noun the act of searching for something
  • verb express the need or desire for; ask for

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English queste, from Old French, ultimately from Latin quaesta, from feminine of *quaestus, obsolete past participle of quaerere, to seek.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Partly from Anglo-Norman queste, Old French queste ("acquisition, search, hunt"), and partly from their source, Latin quaesta ("tribute, tax, inquiry, search"), noun use of quaesita, the feminine past participle of quaerere ("to ask, seek").

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