quest

/kwɛst/

quest noun: a journey or effort in pursuit of a goal (often lengthy, ambitious, or fervent); a mission.

Noun (1)

quest (plural quests)

A journey or effort in pursuit of a goal (often lengthy, ambitious, or fervent); a mission.
- the hero's quest
- Cease your quest of love.c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
Synonyms:

emprise
1. (roleplaying games) A task that a player may complete in order to gain a reward or advance the story.
  - At the same time, players are not forced to complete quests in a certain order; they're allowed enough free will within the game to determine their goals and needs.2012, Nick Iuppa, Terry Borst, Story and Simulations for Serious Games: Tales from the Trenches, New York and London: Focal Press, →ISBN, page 214
The act of seeking, or looking after anything; attempt to find or obtain; search; pursuit.
- to rove in quest of game, of a lost child, of property, etc.
(obsolete) A request; a desire; a solicitation.
- Gad not abroad at every quest and call
  Of an untrained hope or passion.[1633], George Herbert, edited by [Nicholas Ferrar], The Temple. Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis...
(obsolete) A group of people conducting a search or inquiry.
- The senate hath sent about three several quests to search you out.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
(obsolete) An inquest; a jury of inquest.
- To 'cide this title is impanneled
  A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,
  And by their verdict is determined
  The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part […]1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 46”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC

Verb

quest (third-person singular simple present quests, present participle questing, simple past and past participle quested)

(intransitive) To seek or pursue a goal; to undertake a mission or job.
(transitive) To search for something; to seek.
- Next day we quested in search of our caravan, and after some pains recovered it.1634, Thomas Herbert, Description of the Persian Monarchy now beinge the Orientall Indyes, Iles and other ports of the Greater Asia and Africk
To locate and attach to a host animal.

Noun (2)

quest (plural quests)

A short test.
- I had a calculus quest (not a quiz or a test, but somewhere in between...) it was on limits, and l'hopital's rule...1998 March 20, bill kao, “3rd per”, in alt.music.ash (Usenet)
- However took a quest, quiz/test combination that this math progrm^([sic]) uses, and got ten out of ten on it!2004 September 24, Kathy, “Weekly Diary Third Semester #4”, in alt.coffee.clutch (Usenet)

Noun (3) capitalized: QUEST

QUEST (plural QUESTs)

(abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of quantized electronic structure.

Proper noun capitalized: Quest

Quest (plural Quests)

A surname from German.

quest meaning in Hindi, Bengali, Arabic and Indonesian

quest in Hindi

journey or effort in pursuit of a goal: खोज khoj

quest in Bengali

journey or effort in pursuit of a goal: তলাশ tôlaś

quest in Indonesian

journey or effort in pursuit of a goal: pencarian

More languagesFewer languages

quest in Persian: پویش puyeš

Examples of quest in a sentence

I am on a quest... a quest for the most revered icon in Klingon history.1995, “The Sword of Kahless”, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, season 4, episode 8, spoken by Kor, →OCLC:
Quests, bigger than quizzes and smaller than tests, consist of around 10 questions worth 2 points each, designed to take about 30–40 minutes.2015, Kathleen Gibson-Dee, “Learning Through Questing, Not Testing”, in College Teaching, volume 63, number 3, Taylor & Francis, →ISSN...
Three class periods during the semester were used as quest makeup periods, during which students would be able to take new versions of EO and GO quests.2017, Joshua Ring, “ConfChem conference on select 2016 BCCE presentations”, in Journal of Chemical Education, volume 94, number 12, ACS...

All 40 example sentences with quest

Synonyms of quest

emprise

Forms of quest

Noun
plural	quests
plural	QUESTs
Verb
third-person singular present	quests
present participle	questing
past participle	quested
past	quested
Proper noun
plural	Quests

Plural of quest: quests

Origin of quest

From Middle English quest, queste; 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 quaerō (“to ask, seek”). Doublet of question.

Blend of quiz + test, to avoid using the word test.

Borrowed from German Quest.

Words formed from quest

Phrases with quest

side quest

Words that rhyme with quest

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about quest

What does quest mean?: Quest means a journey or effort in pursuit of a goal (often lengthy, ambitious, or fervent); a mission.
What is quest in Hindi?: Quest in Hindi is खोज (khoj). See Quest meaning in Hindi.
How do you use quest in a sentence?: I am on a quest... a quest for the most revered icon in Klingon history.
What part of speech is quest?: Quest can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce quest?: Quest is pronounced /kwɛst/.
What is the plural of quest?: The plural of quest is quests.

Words near quest in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: quest (page history and authors); QUEST (page history and authors); Quest (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-quest.ogg.

Cite this entry: “quest.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quest. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.