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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

jest.

An act performed for amusement; a joke.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/d͡ʒɛst//d͡ʒiːst/dialectal, obsolete/d͡ʒɛst/Early, Modern/d͡ʒɛːst/Early, Modern
  1. An act performed for amusement; a joke.

    archaic
    I made that comment in jest; it wasn't serious.
  2. Someone or something that is ridiculed; the target of a joke.

    archaic
    Your majesty, stop him before he makes you the jest of the court.
  3. A deed; an action; a gest.

    obsolete
  4. A mask; a pageant; an interlude.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English geste (“idle tale”), from Old French geste (“acts, exploits”), from Latin gesta (“acts, deeds”). Doublet of gest.

verb/d͡ʒɛst//d͡ʒiːst/dialectal, obsolete/d͡ʒɛst/Early, Modern/d͡ʒɛːst/Early, Modern
  1. To tell a joke; to talk in a playful manner; to make fun of something or someone.

    Surely you jest!
Where this word comes from

From Middle English geste (“idle tale”), from Old French geste (“acts, exploits”), from Latin gesta (“acts, deeds”). Doublet of gest.

adv
  1. Pronunciation spelling of just.

    Shropshire · Southern-US · alt-of · not-comparable · pronunciation-spelling
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.