list
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: lĭst
ipa: /lɪst/
rhymes: -ɪst
homophone: Liszt
Forms: form: lists
form: listing
form: listed
form: listed
Etymology: From Middle English listen, list, liste, leste, lesten (“to choose, desire, wish (to do something)”), from Old English lystan, from Proto-West Germanic *lustijan, from Proto-Germanic *lustijaną, from Proto-Germanic *lustuz (“pleasure”).
The word is cognate with Saterland Frisian läste (“to wish for, desire, crave”), West Frisian lêste (“to like, desire”), Dutch lusten (“to appreciate, like; to lust”), German lüsten, gelüsten (“to desire, want, crave”), Danish lyste (“to desire, feel like, want”), Faroese lysta (“to desire”).
The noun sense is from the verb, or from Middle English list, liste, lest, leste (“desire, wish; craving, longing; enjoyment, joy, pleasure”), which is derived from Middle English listen, list (verb).
Senses: examples: text: who liſt to lyue yn quyetnes
by me lett hym beware
For I by highe dyſdayne
ame made withoute redreſſe
and vnkyndenes Alas hathe ſlayne
my poore trew hart all comfortles
ref: c. 1536-1542, Thomas Wyatt, “Yf in the world ther be more woo”, in Egerton MS 2711, page 63r:
text: If thou beeſt a man, ſhew thy ſelfe in thy likeneſs. If thou beeſt a diuell, take't as thou liſt.
ref: 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 12, column 2:
text: The winde bloweth where it liſteth, and thou heareſt the ſound thereof, but canſt not tel whence it commeth, and whither it goeth: So is euery one that is borne of the Spirit.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, John 3:8:
text: What! would you have us truſt to what Chriſt in his own perſon has done without us! This conceit would looſen the reines of our luſt, and tollerate us to live as we liſt: For what matter how we live, if we may be Juſtified by Chriſts perſonal righteouſneſs from all, when we believe it?
ref: 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC, page 206:
text: Ye are as gods, that can create soil. Soil-creating gods there is no withstanding. They have the might to sell wheat at what price they list; and the right, to all lengths, and famine-lengths,—if they be pitiless infernal gods!
ref: 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Unworking Aristocracy”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern Worker), page 177:
text: Ye hold me as a woman, weak of will, / And strive to sway me: but my heart is stout, / Nor fears to speak its uttermost to you, / Albeit ye know its message. Praise or blame, / Even as ye list,—I reck not of your words.
ref: 1881, Aeschylus, “Agamemnon”, in E[dmund] D[oidge] A[nderson] Morshead, transl., The House of Atreus: Being The Agamemnon, Libation-bearers, and Furies of Æschylus. Translated into English Verse, London: Simpkin and Marshall, […]; Winchester, Hampshire: Warren and Son, […], →OCLC, pages 65–66:
text: License consists in doing what one lists; liberty consists in doing in the right manner the good only; and our knowledge of the good must come from a higher principle, from above.
ref: 1959, Leo Strauss, “What is Political Philosophy?”, in What is Political Philosophy?: And Other Studies, Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, →OCLC, page 51:
text: The spirit seemed to blow where it listed among a historically motley collection of Catholic theologians, Puritan zealots and American squires.
ref: 1994, John [Wyon] Burrow, The Historian: The Magazine for Members of the Historical Association, London: The Historical Association, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 176, column 2:
glosses: To desire, like, or wish (to do something).
examples: text: Might then I depart, and dwell as listeth me, out of all the world?
ref: 2016, Graydon Saunders, chapter 13, in Safely You Deliver:
glosses: To be pleasing to.