Forms: 1 cest, cyst, 3–6 cheste, 3–5 chiste, 4–7 chist, 5 chast(e, 5–6 chyst, (6 ? gest), 3– chest. See also KIST. [OE. cest, *ciest, cist, cyst (:—*cesta) str. fem., app. an early adoption of L. cista, a. Gr. κίστη box, chest. Cf. OFris. kiste, (MDu. kiste, Du. kist), OHG. chista (MHG. and Ger. kiste):—*kista str. fem. ON. kista wk. fem. (Sw. kista, Da. kiste, was prob. a later adoption. Cf. KIST, CIST. (Some claim for OE. cest a native origin, connecting it with Ger. kasten box.)]
1. A box, a coffer; now mostly applied to a large box of strong construction, used for the safe custody of articles of value.
a. 700. Epinal & Erf. Gloss., 231 (& Corpus 365), Capsis cest.
c. 975. Rushw. Gosp., John xiii. 29. Sume … woendun þætte ceste hæfde Iudas.
c. 1000. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 276. Capsis, cist. Ibid. (a. 1100), 326. Loculus, cyst.
a. 1300. Havelok, 222. Ne micte men finde … Of his in arke, ne in chiste.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Wyf’s Prol., 309. Wherfor hydestow … The keyes of thy chist away fro me?
c. 1430. Lydg., Bochas, I. xiv. (1554), 27 b. Out of her chist to take the fatell brond.
1535. Coverdale, 2 Kings xii. 9. Ioiada the prest toke a chest, and bored an hole aboue therin.
1568. Grafton, Chron., II. 456. Certeine Frenche men … entered into the kinges Campe … and there … robbed Tentes, brake up Chestes, and caried away Caskettes.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 455. Cloths and apparels bestowed in chists and coffers.
1678. Butler, Hud., III. Lady’s Answ., 71. Those bright guineas in our chests.
1727. Swift, Gulliver, II. viii. 169. Set afloat in that monstrous wooden chest.
1752. Johnson, Rambler, No. 206, ¶ 4. To break open the chests, or mortgage the manors of his ancestors.
1859. Tennyson, Vivien, 653. Keep it like a puzzle chest in chest.
b. esp. A box devoted to the safe custody of the personal property of a sailor, etc.; or of the tools and requisites of any craftsman, as a carpenter’s chest, surgeon’s chest; or of the requisites of any particular department, as a medicine chest, tool chest, etc. (Commonly including the contents.)
1615. Britain’s Buss, in Arb., Garner, III. 634. Physic and Surgery helps … A Chest, with partitions, for all these things.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, xiii. (1790), 244. I found in the seaman’s Chest about fifty pieces of eight. Ibid. (1720), Capt. Singleton, x. (1840), 177. Things… useful to furnish a surgeon’s chest.
Mod. Family medicine chests from one guinea upwards.
c. = CAISSON.
1679. Lond. Gaz., No. 1457/1. The chest now sunck is of the same Dimensions.
1816. C. James, Mil. Dict., s.v. Bridges, Caisson, a kind of chest, or flat-bottomed boat, in which a pier is built.
d. Chest of = chest full of, chestful of.
1775. Johnson, Journ. West. Isl., Wks. X. 461. The father of Ossian boasts of two chests more of ancient poetry.
1854. Emerson, Lett. & Soc. Aims, Resources, Wks. (Bohn), III. 197. His [man’s] body [is] a chest of tools.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., IV. i. [He] brought forth … his chest of clothes.
2. fig. (With some of these, cf. sense 9.)
c. 1430. Lydg., Compl. Bl. Knt., xxxiii. The brest is chest of dule and drerynesse.
c. 1430. Chev. Assigne, 127. Holde þy wordes in chaste þat none skape ferther.
1593. Shaks., Lucr., cx. Some purer chest, to close so pure a mind.
† 3. A coffin. Still dial.
c. 800. K. Ælfred, Bæda, IV. xxx. (Bosw.). Ðæt hi woldan his ban on niwe cyste ʓedon.
c. 1000. O. E. Gosp., Luke vii. 14. He … ða cyste æt-hran.
c. 1160. Hatton G., ibid. He … þa cheste ætran.
c. 1205. Lay., 32303. His ban beoð iloken faste i guldene cheste.
1297. R. Glouc. (1724), 50. Buryede with hym in hys chest.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Clerkes Prol., 29. He is now deed, and nayled in his chest.
1477. Earl Rivers (Caxton), Dictes, 96. The chest that his body laye in.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XIII. xiii. One Cn. Terentius … as he digged … light upon a chist, wherein lay the bodie of Numa.
1602. Return fr. Parnass., I. ii. (Arb.), 13. Let all his faultes sleepe with his mournefull chest.
1772. Pennant, Tours Scotl., 180. A stone chest, formed of five flat stones.
1859. Capern, Ball. & Songs, 107. A shell is let down—Then, a small wooden chest.
† 4. Applied to a basket or ‘ark’ of rushes, etc.
a. 1000. Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, 204. Cistula, Sporta, uel cyst.
c. 1340. Cursor M., 5617 (Trin.). In þis chist þe childe she dide.
c. 1700. Addison, trans. Coronis. Minerva … the infant laid Within a chest of twining osiers made.
5. The place in which the money belonging to a public institution is kept; treasury, coffer; often used transf. for the fund of money itself. † b. A cash account (obs.).
1588. J. Mellis, Briefe Instr., C ij. By Capsa is vnderstood the chyst or ready money … And if … the Creditor syde of your chyst … should bee founde more … than the Debitor side of your said Chist, then were there error.
1662. Pepys, Diary, 2 July. The business of the Chest at Chatham.
1699. T. C[ockman], Tully’s Offices (1706), 196. In the one Case we are beholden to the Chest, in the other to the Virtues and Abilities of the Person.
1803. Collect. Stat. Admir., Navy, etc. (1810), 651. A certain ancient … Institution, commonly called … The Chest at Chatham, for the perpetual Relief of such Mariners and Seafaring Men as have been or may happen to be hurt or maimed in the Service of his Majesty…. It is expedient … that the said Chest should be removed from Chatham … to the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich.
1835. I. Taylor, Spir. Despot., iv. 138. The Church possessed herself of a chest; that is to say, became mistress of a disposable capital.
1839–42. Alison, Hist. Europe (1849–51), III. xiii. § 88. A military chest was formed.
1883. G. W. Hemming, in 19th Cent., May, 829. Even the library was starved on an annual pittance from the University chest, wholly unequal to its wants.
6. Commerce. A large box or case in which certain commodities, as tea, sugar, etc., are packed for transport; hence used as a variable measure of quantity for such commodities; now almost confined to tea chests.
1708. Kersey, Chest … also an uncertain Quantity of some Merchandizes, as of Sugar, from 10 to 15 Hundred Weight.
1727. A. Hamilton, New Acc. E. Ind., I. ix. 98. They can yearly export 2000 Chests of Rose-Water … A Chest contains about 12 English Gallons.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., A chest of sugar … contains from ten to fifteen hundred weight: a chest of glass, from 200 to 300 feet; of Castile-soap, from 21/2 to three hundred weight; of indigo, from 11/2 to two hundred weight.
1823. J. Badcock, Dom. Amusem., 170. Sheet lead, which comes to us in the way of lining round tea-chests.
Mod. A small chest of tea as a christmas gift.
† 7. Chest of viols: a case containing a set of viols; the set of viols itself. Obs.
1611. Cotgr., Vn ieu de violles, a set, or chest of Violls.
1641. Hinde, J. Bruen, 10. Musitians and a chest of Viols kept in the house.
a. 1789. Burney, Hist. Mus., III. 356. Viols … of which it was usual, during the last century, for most musical families to be in possession of a chest, consisting of two trebles, two tenors and two basses.
8. Chest of drawers: a kind of large box or frame fitted with a set of drawers; formerly used for keeping money and other valuables, now an article of bedroom furniture in which clothes are kept.
[1599. Minsheu, Caxón, a great chest, or standerd with drawing chests, or boxes in it.]
1677. Lond. Gaz., No. 1166/4. Quilts, Chairs, Carpets … and Chests of Drawers.
1691. M. Pitt, Cry of Oppressed, Pref. 30. My Lord’s Chest of Drawers wherein his Money was.
1710–1. Swift, Lett. (1767), III. 109. The key general of the chest of drawers with six locks.
1770. Goldsm., Des. Vill., 230. A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.
1859. W. Collins, Q. of Hearts (1875), 86. Isaac locked the door, set his candle on the chest of drawers.
9. That part of the human body inclosed by the ribs and breast-bone, forming the upper part of the trunk, and containing the heart and lungs; the thorax. Also the same part in the lower animals.
1530. Palsgr., 205/1. Chest of a man, fovrielle.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 57. One that had a suppuration in his chist.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., I. iii. 163. The large Achilles (on his prest-bed lolling) From his deepe Chest, laughes out a lowd applause.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., s.v. Costæ, The Ribs, are those Bones which with other parts make the Chest or Thorax.
a. 1720. Gay, Dione, II. iii. The tall swan, whose proudly swelling chest Divides the wave.
1813. J. Thomson, Lect. Inflam., 559. Violent inflammatory affections of the head, chest, or belly.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. ix. 9. When corage first does creepe in manly chest.
1647. H. More, Song of Soul, II. i. III. xiii. What rage, what sorrow boils thus in thy chest?
10. Comb. a. In sense 1, as chestful, -lid, -lock, -maker, etc. † chest-breaker, one who breaks open chests (cf. house-breaker); chest-saw, ‘a species of hand-saw without a back’ (Knight, Dict. Mech.); chest-trap (see quot.).
b. In sense 9, as chest-pressed ppl. adj.; chest-founder, -foundering, a rheumatic affection of the muscles of the chest in horses; chest-foundered a., affected with chest-foundering; chest-measurer, an instrument for measuring the capacity of the chest, or the movement of the walls of the chest in respiration, a stethometer; chest-note, a note produced in the lowest register of the voice (see chest-voice); chest-protector, a covering or wrap to protect the chest from cold; chest-quake, humorous nonce-wd., after earthquake; chest-voice, the lowest register of the voice in singing or speaking.
1604. Meeting of Gallants, 11. Hee would … rather bee a Wood-cleauer in the Countrey, then a *chest-breaker in London.
1703. Lond. Gaz., No. 3908/4. A black Gelding … goes stradling before, being *Chest-founder’d.
c. 1720. Gibson, Farrier’s Guide, II. xxvi. (1738), 90. Of *Chest-foundering The Disease … comes the nearest of any to that which in a Human body is called a Pleurisy.
1723. Wodrow, Corr. (1843), III. 106. A large *chestful of Mr. Calderwood’s papers.
1884. Child, Ballads, II. xli. 363/1. He promises red gold and chestfuls of pence.
1815. Milman, Fazio (1821), 9. A huge *chestlid jealously and scantily Uplifted.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Cestero, a *chest maker, a basket maker.
1862. H. Fuller, Dis. Lungs, 26. An instrument proposed by Dr. Sibson. He has named it the *Chest-measurer.
1881. Syd. Soc. Lex., Chest-measurer, same as Stethometer.
1854. Bushnan, in Circ. Sc. (c. 1865), I. 286/1. The notes of the natural voice—called also *chest-notes—are fuller.
1879. Haweis, Music & Morals, I. vii. The tenor has to come out with a high chest-note.
a. 1845. Hood, Nocturnal Sk., v. In a nightmare rest, *chest-press’d.
1888. W. Roberts, in 19th Cent., March, 465. Most men need flannels, *chest-protectors, [etc.].
1855. G. Meredith, Shav. Shagpat (1872), 157. *Chestquakes of irresistible laughter.
1726. Dict. Rust. (ed. 3), *Chest-Traps, a kind of Boxes or Traps, used to take Pole-cats, Fitchets, Marterns and the like Vermine.
1879. Hullah, in Grove, Dict. Mus., I. 344/2. By *‘chest-voice’ is commonly understood the lowest sounds of a voice…; in other words, the ‘first register.’
