guest

plural guests

1. A recipient of hospitality, especially someone staying by invitation at the house of another.

   The guests were let in by the butler.

   1 more example

   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.

   1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

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.

   special guest

   1 more example

   The guest for the broadcast was a leading footballer.

4. computingA user given temporary access to a system despite not having an account of their own.
5. biologyAny insect that lives in the nest of another without compulsion and usually not as a parasite.
6. biologyAn inquiline.

present singular third person guests · participle present guesting · participle past guested · past guested

1. intransitiveTo appear as a guest, especially on a broadcast.

   Jimmy Fallon’s Trump impression struggled to match up to the real thing when Trump guested on his show.

   2016 May 23, David Sims, “Where 'Saturday Night Live' Failed This Season”, in The Atlantic, retrieved 12 Dec 2025

   1 more example

   During the '60s, he guested as off-beat characters on TV shows like "The Asphalt Jungle," "Bus Stop," and "The Detectives."

   1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 254

2. intransitiveAs 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).

   Oldest son Trey, from Will's first marriage, paved the way for his sibling's stardom when he guested on his dad's hit rap album, Big Willie Style, lending some precocious dialogue to the beginning of "Just the Two of Us" and starring in the accompanying music video:

   2010 September 9, Kevin Fallon, “Will Smith's 9-Year-Old Daughter Gets Record Deal”, in The Atlantic, retrieved 12 Dec 2025

3. obsoletetransitiveTo receive or entertain hospitably.

   Two Angels sent Two Heav'nly Scowts the Lord to Sodom sent ; downe , received and guested

   1608, [Guillaume de Salluste] Du Bartas, translated by Josuah Sylvester, Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Humfrey Lownes [and are to be sold by Arthur Iohnson […]], published 1611, →OCLC

1. A surname.

   1 more example

   The vote was 213-209 along party lines. Republican members of the House Ethics Committee – Michael Guest of Mississippi, Dave Joyce of Ohio, Andrew Garbarino of New York, John Rutherford of Florida and Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota – voted present. GOP Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado also voted present but he is not on the Ethics Committee.

   2023 June 21, Haley Talbot and Kristin Wilson, “House votes to censure Democratic congressman who led Trump investigations”, in CNN, archived from the original on 03 Mar 2024

2. A river in Virginia, United States, a tributary of the Clinch.
3. An unincorporated community in DeKalb County, Alabama, United States.
4. A visitor to any of the Disney theme parks