hest

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hest

(hĕst)

n. Archaic

Command; behest.

[Middle English, alteration of hes, from Old English hǣs; see keiə- in Indo-European roots.]

hest

(hɛst)

an archaic word for behest

[Old English hǣs; related to hātan to promise, command]

be•hest

(bɪˈhɛst)

n.

1. a command; directive.

2. an earnest request.

[before 1000; Middle English bihest(e), Old English behǣs promise. See be-, hest]

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References in classic literature ?

But if ye still keep silence, if through fear For self or friends ye disregard my hest, Hear what I then resolve; I lay my ban On the assassin whosoe'er he be.

See that ye give effect to all my hest, For my sake and the god's and for our land, A desert blasted by the wrath of heaven.

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The road I choose, Dogged by my sire and his avenging spirit, Leads me to ruin; but for you may Zeus Make your path bright if ye fulfill my hest When dead; in life ye cannot serve me more.

THESEUS My children, he Charged me straitly that no moral Should approach the sacred portal, Or greet with funeral litanies The hidden tomb wherein he lies; Saying, "If thou keep'st my hest Thou shalt hold thy realm at rest." The God of Oaths this promise heard, And to Zeus I pledged my word.

View in context

Now that the gloomy shadow of the night, Longing to view Orion's drizzling look, Leaps from th' antartic world unto the sky, And dims the welkin with her pitchy breath, Faustus, begin thine incantations, And try if devils will obey thy hest, Seeing thou hast pray'd and sacrific'd to them.

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They were drowned by rising tides off Hest Bank in Lancashire on February 5 last year.

Gangmaster let rising tide trap cockle pickers; Court told how his lack of care led to 21 dead in Morecambe Bay

Ms Walker said the fisheries department had been checking permits and the police were delivering letters of reassurance to 5,500 homes in Hest Bank.

Police bail men over deaths of cocklers

They had been trying to free their pounds 2,500 quad bike from a patch of quicksand as they collected cockles off Hest Bank in Morecambe Bay.

WE'LL STAY ON COCKLE SANDS

The figures were released three days before the anniversary of the deaths of at least 21 Chinese cocklers, many of whom were believed to be from the Merseyside area, who drowned in rising tides off Hest Bank in the Lancashire bay on February 5 last year On Saturday, it will be a year to the day since the migrant workers were dragged beneath the incoming tide, which was swelled by flood waters and treacherous weather.