vest
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /vɛst/
rhymes: -ɛst
Forms: form: vests
form: vesting
form: vested
form: vested
Etymology: 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.
Senses: examples: text: Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.
ref: 1673, John Milton, Methought I Saw my Late Espoused Saint:
text: With ether vested, and a purple sky.
ref: 1697, John Dryden, Aeneid:
glosses: To clothe with, or as with, a vestment, or garment; to dress; to robe; to cover, surround, or encompass closely.
examples: text: to vest a court with power to try cases of life and death
text: 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.
ref: c. 1718, Matthew Prior, To Mr. Howard - An Ode:
glosses: To clothe with authority, power, etc.; to put in possession; to invest; to furnish; to endow; followed by with and the thing conferred.
examples: text: The power of life and death is vested in the king, or in the courts.
text: , Book I
Empire and dominion […] was vested in him.
glosses: To place or give into the possession or discretion of some person or authority; to commit to another; with in before the possessor.
examples: text: to vest a person with an estate
text: an estate is vested in possession
text: For the right of the crown vests[…]upon his heir.
ref: 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC:
topics: law
glosses: To clothe with possession; also, to give a person an immediate fixed right of present or future enjoyment of.
examples: text: Upon the death of the Sovereign the Crown automatically vests in the next heir without the need of coronation or other formality.
topics: law
glosses: (of an inheritance or a trust fund) To devolve upon the person currently entitled when a prior interest has ended.
examples: text: My pension vests at the end of the month and then I can take it with me when I quit.
text: 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.
ref: 2005, Kaye A. Thomas, Consider Your Options, page 104:
text: 2007, Ransey Guy Cole, Jr. (United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit), Roger Miller Music, Inc. v. Sony ATV Publishing, LLC
Sony interpreted 17 U.S.C. § 304 as requiring that the author be alive at the start of the copyright renewal term for the author’s prior assignments to vest.
text: They were, they said tipsily, essentially being paid to do nothing while earning out — or “vesting” — their stock grants. “Rest and vest,” the techies said, in between sips of beer.
ref: 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 Aug 2025:
topics: business
finance
glosses: To become vested, to become permanent.
examples: text: to vest money in goods, land, or houses
glosses: To invest; to put.