From Middle English gest, from Old Norse gestr, which replaced or was merged with Old English ġiest, both from Proto-Germanic *gastiz, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰóstis.

• enPR: gĕst, IPA: /ɡɛst/

guest (plural guests)

1. A recipient of hospitality, especially someone staying by invitation at the house of another.

   The guests were let in by the butler.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC ↗:

     We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine. We passed on the way the van of the guests from Asquith.

2. A patron or customer in a hotel etc.

   Guests must vacate their rooms by 10 o'clock on their day of departure.

3. An invited visitor or performer to an institution or to a broadcast.

   special guest

   The guest for the broadcast was a leading footballer.

4. (computing) A user given temporary access to a system despite not having an account of their own.
5. (zoology) Any insect that lives in the nest of another without compulsion and usually not as a parasite.
6. (zoology) An inquiline.

• French: invité, invitée, hôte
• German: Gast
• Italian: ospite, invitato, convitato
• Portuguese: hóspede, convidado
• Russian: гость
• Spanish: huésped, visita, visitante, convidado, comensal

• French: client
• German: Gast
• Italian: cliente, ospite
• Portuguese: hóspede
• Russian: посети́тель

• German: Gast
• Italian: ospite
• Portuguese: convidado
• Russian: гость
• Spanish: invitado, invitada

guest (guests, present participle guesting; simple past and past participle guested)

1. (intransitive) To appear as a guest, especially on a broadcast.
2. (intransitive) As a musician: to play as a guest, providing an instrument that a band/orchestra does not normally have in its line up (for instance, percussion in a string band).
3. (transitive, obsolete) To receive or entertain hospitably.
   • 1608, [Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas], “(please specify the page)”, in Josuah Sylvester, transl., Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Humfrey Lownes [and are to be sold by Arthur Iohnson […]], published 1611, →OCLC ↗:

     Two Angels sent Two Heav'nly Scowts the Lord to Sodom sent ; downe , received and guested

• German: gastieren
• Russian: гости́ть

1. Surname.
2. A visitor to any of the Disney theme parks