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From Middle English gest, from Old Norse gestr, which replaced or was merged with Old English ġiest, both from Proto-Germanic *gastiz, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰóstis (stranger, guest, host, someone with whom one has reciprocal duties of hospitality). Doublet of host.



guest (plural guests)

  1. A recipient of hospitality, specifically someone staying by invitation at the house of another.
    The guests were let in by the butler.
      We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine. We passed on the way the van of the guests from Asquith.
  2. A patron or customer in a hotel etc.
    Guests must vacate their rooms by 10 o'clock on their day of departure.
  3. An invited visitor or performer to an institution or to a broadcast.
    The guest for the broadcast was a leading footballer.
  4. (zoology) Any insect that lives in the nest of another without compulsion and usually not as a parasite.
  5. (zoology) An inquiline.



guest (third-person singular simple present guests, present participle guesting, simple past and past participle guested)

  1. (intransitive) to appear as a guest, especially on a broadcast
  2. (intransitive) as a musician, to play as a guest, providing an instrument that a band/orchestra does not normally have in its line up (for instance, percussion in a string band)
  3. (transitive, obsolete) To receive or entertain hospitably.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Sylvester to this entry?)


Derived terms[edit]