vest

/vɛst/

vest noun: a sleeveless garment that buttons down the front, worn over a shirt, and often as part of a suit; a waistcoat.

Noun

vest (plural vests)

(Canada, US) A sleeveless garment that buttons down the front, worn over a shirt, and often as part of a suit; a waistcoat.
- The Jones man was looking at her hard. Now he reached into the hatch of his vest and fetched out a couple of cigars, everlasting big ones, with gilt bands on them.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter X, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
Synonyms:

waistcoat
(UK) A sleeveless garment, often with a low-cut neck, usually worn under a shirt or blouse.

Synonyms:

singlet, tank top, undershirt
A sleeveless top, typically with identifying colours or logos, worn by an athlete or member of a sports team.
Any sleeveless outer garment, often for a purpose such as identification, safety, or storage.
- He gripped some of the shreds and pulled off his vest and the shirt beneath it, his clothing disintegrating around him. What in the hell point was there in wearing a twenty-five-pound bulletproof vest if you could still get gunned to death?2010, Thomas Mullen, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, Random House, →ISBN, page 162
A vestment.
- In state attended by her maiden train, / Who bore the vests that holy rites require.1700, John Dryden, Palamon and Arcite
Clothing generally; array; garb.
- Not seldom, clad in radiant vest / Deceitfully goes forth the morn.1800, William Wordsworth, [unnamed poem] (classified under Inscriptions)
(archaic) A loose robe or outer garment worn historically by men in Arab or Middle Eastern countries.

Verb

vest (third-person singular simple present vests, present participle vesting, simple past and past participle vested)

(passive) To clothe with, or as with, a vestment, or garment; to dress; to robe; to cover, surround, or encompass closely.
- Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.1673, John Milton, Methought I Saw my Late Espoused Saint
- With ether vested, and a purple sky.1697, John Dryden, Aeneid
To clothe with authority, power, etc.; to put in possession; to invest; to furnish; to endow; followed by with and the thing conferred.
- to vest a court with power to try cases of life and death
- Had thy poor breast receiv’d an equal pain; / Had I been vested with the monarch’s power; / Thou must have sigh’d, unlucky youth, in vain; / Nor from my bounty hadst thou found a cure.c. 1718, Matthew Prior, To Mr. Howard - An Ode
To place or give into the possession or discretion of some person or authority; to commit to another; with in before the possessor.
- The power of life and death is vested in the king, or in the courts.
- , Book I
  Empire and dominion […] was vested in him.
To clothe with possession; also, to give a person an immediate fixed right of present or future enjoyment of.
- to vest a person with an estate
- an estate is vested in possession
(intransitive) (of an inheritance or a trust fund) To devolve upon the person currently entitled when a prior interest has ended.
- Upon the death of the Sovereign the Crown automatically vests in the next heir without the need of coronation or other formality.
(intransitive) To become vested, to become permanent.
- My pension vests at the end of the month and then I can take it with me when I quit.
- If you doubt that you'll stick around at the company long enough for your options to vest, you should discount the value for that uncertainty as well.2005, Kaye A. Thomas, Consider Your Options, page 104
(obsolete) To invest; to put.
- to vest money in goods, land, or houses

Proper noun capitalized: Vest

Vest (plural Vests)

A surname.

vest meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

vest in Hindi

to vest: निहित करना nihit karnā, निहित होना nihit honā
vest: गंजी gañjī, जामा jāmā
vest; undershirt: बनियान baniyān

vest in Urdu

vest; undershirt: بنیان baniyān
vest: جامہ jāma

vest in Bengali

পোশাক পরানো, অধিকার দেওয়া, বন্টন

More languagesFewer languages

vest in Telugu: చొక్కా cokkā
vest in Malayalam: ബനിയൻ baniyaṉ
vest in Kannada: ನಡುವಂಗಿ, ಒಳಜುಬ್ಬ, ಒಳಕವಚ, ಎದೆಯಂಗಿ
vest in Punjabi: بنین banaiṇ
vest in Odia: ଭେଷ୍ଟ
vest in Nepali: भेस्ट
vest in Arabic: صُدَيْرِيّ ṣudayriyy
vest in Malay: singlet
vest in Indonesian: singlet, rompi
vest in Persian: ژیلت žilet
vest in Vietnamese: áo gi lê, gi-lê

Examples of vest in a sentence

For the right of the crown vests[…]upon his heir.1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon...
They were, they said tipsily, essentially being paid to do nothing while earning out — or “vesting” — their stock grants.2025 August 4, Mike Isaac, “A.I. Has Ushered in Silicon Valley’s ‘Hard Tech’ Era”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 04...

All 40 example sentences with vest

Synonyms of vest

Forms of vest

Noun
plural	vests
Verb
third-person singular present	vests
present participle	vesting
past participle	vested
past	vested
Proper noun
plural	Vests

Past tense of vest: vested

Plural of vest: vests

Origin of vest

Derived from French veste (“a vest, jacket”), from Latin vestis (“a garment, gown, robe, vestment, clothing, vesture”), from Proto-Indo-European *wéstis, from *wes- (“to be dressed”) (English wear). Cognate with Sanskrit वस्त्र (vastra) and Spanish vestir.

Words formed from vest

Phrases with vest

Words that rhyme with vest

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about vest

What does vest mean?: Vest means a sleeveless garment that buttons down the front, worn over a shirt, and often as part of a suit; a waistcoat.
What is vest in Hindi?: Vest in Hindi is निहित करना (nihit karnā), निहित होना (nihit honā), गंजी (gañjī). See Vest meaning in Hindi.
How do you use vest in a sentence?: For the right of the crown vests[…]upon his heir.
What part of speech is vest?: Vest can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce vest?: Vest is pronounced /vɛst/.
What is the plural of vest?: The plural of vest is vests.

Words near vest in the dictionary

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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

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