From Middle English forest, from Old French forest, from la-eme forestis, likely from Proto-West Germanic *furhisti.

• (RP) enPR: fŏr′ĭst, IPA: /ˈfɒɹɪst/
• (General American) enPR: fôr′ĭst, fŏr′ĭst, fôrst, IPA: /ˈfɔɹəst/, /fɔɹst/
• (New York City, Philadelphia) IPA: /ˈfɑɹɪst/, /ˈfɑɹəst/
• (California) IPA: [ˈfɔɹ.ɛ̈stʰ]

1. A dense uncultivated tract of trees and undergrowth, larger than woods.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC ↗, stanza 3, page 76 ↗:

     Who after Archimagoes fowle defeat / Led her away into a foreſt wilde, / And turning wrathfull fyre to luſtfull heat, / With beaſtly ſin though her to haue defilde, / And made the vaſſal of his pleaſures vilde.

2. Any dense collection or amount.

   a forest of criticism

   • 1998, Katharine Payne, Silent Thunder: In the Presence of Elephants, page 59:

     Squealing and still propelled by the kick, the calf scrabbled through the forest of legs and into the open.

3. (historical) A defined area of land set aside in England as royal hunting ground or for other privileged use; all such areas.
4. (graph theory) A graph with no cycles; i.e., a graph made up of trees.
5. (computing, Microsoft Windows) A group of domains that are managed as a unit.
6. The color forest green.

• French: forêt, brousse, sylve, bois, bosquet
• German: Wald, Forst, Gehölz, Hain
• Italian: bosco, selva, foresta
• Portuguese: floresta, selva, bosque, mata
• Russian: лес
• Spanish: bosque, floresta, selva, foresta

• Italian: foresta
• Portuguese: floresta
• Russian: лес

• Italian: foresta

forest (forests, present participle foresting; simple past and past participle forested)

1. (transitive) To cover an area with trees.
   • 1937, Széchenyi Scientific Society, Report on the Work of the Széchenyi Scientific Society: Founded for the Promotion of Research in Natural Sciences in Hungary, Zeéchenyi Scientific Society, page 83:

     From the view-point of national economy professor Fehér communicates to us most interesting facts, which he has established in an important question now of actuality : in the subject of foresting the Great Hungarian Plains.

• afforest
• reforest

• German: aufforsten
• Portuguese: florestar
• Spanish: forestar

1. Surname.
2. A city/county seat in Scott County, Mississippi.
3. A male given name: Alternative form of Forrest.