Etymology

guest

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Today it means: A recipient of hospitality, especially someone staying by invitation at the house of another. Full definition →

Middle English gest ← Old Norse gestr ← Proto-Germanic *gastiz
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*gʰóstis“stranger, guest, host, someone with whom one has reciprocal duties of hospitality”
  2. Proto-Germanic · derived from*gastiz
  3. Old Norse · derived fromgestr
  4. Middle English · inherited fromgest
  5. English todayguest

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, from Latin. Cognates West-Germanic: :* Bavarian Gåst (“guest”) :* Dutch gast (“guest”) :* German Gast (“guest”) :* Luxembourgish Gaascht (“guest”) :* Vilamovian gost (“guest”) :* Yiddish גאַסט (gast, “guest”) North-Germanic: :* Danish gæst (“guest, visitor”) :* Faroese and Icelandic gestur (“guest”) :* Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk gjest (“guest”) :* Swedish gäst (“guest”) East-Germanic: :* Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍃𐍄𐍃 (gasts, “guest”)

Words from the same roots

Proto-Indo-European*gʰóstis all →

hostgostilna

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.