nest

From Middle English nest, nist, nyst, from Old English nest, from Proto-Germanic *nestą, from Proto-Indo-European *nisdós (“nest”), literally "where [the bird] sits down", a compound of *ni (“down”) (whence also English nether) + the zero-grade of the root *sed- (“to sit”) (whence also English sit).

• IPA^(key): /nɛst/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛst

A Taveta Golden-weaver's elaborate nest

Ground nest of Sprague's Pipit

nest (plural nests)

1. A structure built by a bird as a place to incubate eggs and rear young.
2. A place used by another mammal, fish, amphibian or insect, for depositing eggs and hatching young.
3. A snug, comfortable, or cosy residence or job situation.
4. A retreat, or place of habitual resort.
5. A hideout for bad people to frequent or haunt; a den.

   a nest of thieves

   That nightclub is a nest of strange people!

   • 1724, Charles Johnson, “Of Capt. Edward England, and His Crew. [A Letter from Captain Makra, dated at Bombay, Nov. 16, 1720.]”, in A General History of the Pyrates, […], 2nd edition, London: Printed for, and sold by T. Warner, […], OCLC 2276353, page 119:

     Capt. Kirby and I concluding it might be of great Service to the Eaſt-India Company to deſtroy such a Neſt of Rogues, were ready to ſail for that Purpoſe […]

   • 1895, Frances Power Cobbe, Life of Frances Power Cobbe, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Volume 1, Chapter 10, p. 254,

     Miss Carpenter told me that a short time previously some Bow Street constables had been sent down to this place to ferret out a crime which had been committed there, and that they reported there was not in all London such a nest of wickedness as they had explored.

6. A home that a child or young adult shares with a parent or guardian.

   I am aspiring to leave the nest.

7. (card games) A fixed number of cards in some bidding games awarded to the highest bidder allowing him to exchange any or all with cards in his hand.

   I was forced to change trumps when I found the ace, jack, and nine of diamonds in the nest.

8. (military) A fortified position for a weapon.

   a machine gun nest

9. (computing) A structure consisting of nested structures, such as nested loops or nested subroutine calls.
   • 1981, Donnamaie E. White, Bit-Slice Design: Controllers and ALU's, Garland STPM Press, →ISBN, page 49:

     Subroutine 4 cannot jump out of the subroutine nest in one step. Each return address must be popped from the stack in the order in which it was pushed onto the stack.

   • 1993 August, Bwolen Yang et al., "Do&Merge: Integrating Parallel Loops and Reductions", in Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing (workshop proceedings), Springer (1994), →ISBN, page 178:

     Our analysis to this point has assumed that in a loop nest, we are only parallelizing a single loop.

10. A circular bed of pasta, rice, etc. to be topped or filled with other foods.
11. (geology) An aggregated mass of any ore or mineral, in an isolated state, within a rock.
12. A collection of boxes, cases, or the like, of graduated size, each put within the one next larger.
13. A compact group of pulleys, gears, springs, etc., working together or collectively.

• For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:nest.

An olive-backed sunbird (Cinnyris jugularis) nesting in Singapore

nest (third-person singular simple present nests, present participle nesting, simple past and past participle nested)

1. (intransitive, of animals) To build or settle into a nest.
2. (intransitive) To settle into a home.

   We loved the new house and were nesting there in two days!

3. (intransitive) To successively neatly fit inside another.

   I bought a set of nesting mixing bowls for my mother.

4. (transitive) To place in, or as if in, a nest.
5. (transitive) To place one thing neatly inside another, and both inside yet another (and so on).

   There would be much more room in the attic if you had nested all the empty boxes.

6. (intransitive) To hunt for birds' nests or their contents (usually "go nesting").
   • 1895, Alfred Emanuel Smith, Francis Walton

     After the first heavy frost, when acorns were falling, I took a friend into partnership and went nesting.

• nest on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Nest in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

• ENTs, Sten, TENS, ents, nets, sent, sent., snet, tens

From Middle Dutch nest, from Old Dutch nest, from Proto-Germanic *nestaz. Cognate with English, German Nest etc.

• Rhymes: -ɛst
• IPA^(key): /nɛst/

• audio

  (file)

nest n (plural nesten, diminutive nestje n)

1. A nest (place to hatch young, especially bird structure; snug residence; retreat; hideout; home)
2. (colloquial) One's bed

   Kom uit je nest, ’t is hoogste tijd!

   Get out of bed, it’s late!

3. A nasty, ill-behaving or pretentious child; a brat.

   Wat een verwend nest!

   What a spoiled, pretentious brat!

From Old Norse næstr, cognate with Swedish näst, English next.

nest

1. by, near

• IPA^(key): /nʲesʲtʲ/

nest

1. to carry, to bear, to drive, to sweep

Cognate with Lithuanian nèšti (“to carry, bring”), see there for more.

• IPA^(key): /nest/

nest tr., 1st conj., pres. nesu, nes, nes, past nesu

1. (transitive) to carry
2. (transitive) to bring

Adverbial form of neste

nest

1. next, second

   nest største - second largest

• nestleder

• “nest” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Adverbial form of neste

nest

1. next, second

   nest eldst - second oldest

• “nest” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

• IPA^(key): /nest/

nest n

1. nest

   Ealle fuglas habbaþ heora nest ongunnen būtan þū and iċ.

   All the birds have started their nests except for you and me.

• English: nest

• gnest
• gwnest

• (North Wales) IPA^(key): /nɛsd/, [nɛst]
• (South Wales) IPA^(key): /neːsd/, [neːst], /nɛsd/, [nɛst]

nest

1. (colloquial) second-person singular preterite of gwneud