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Nest
Definitions
- 1 A surname from German or Welsh.
- 1 A structure built by a bird as a place to incubate eggs and rear young.
- 2 Initialism of native English-speaking teacher. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism
- 3 a kind of gun emplacement wordnet
- 4 A place used by a monotreme, fish, amphibian or insect, for depositing eggs and hatching young.
- 5 furniture pieces made to fit close together wordnet
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- 6 A snug, comfortable, or cosy residence or job situation.
- 7 a gang of people (criminals or spies or terrorists) assembled in one locality wordnet
- 8 A retreat, or place of habitual resort.
- 9 a cosy or secluded retreat wordnet
- 10 A hideout for bad people to frequent or haunt; a den.
"a nest of thieves"
- 11 a structure in which animals lay eggs or give birth to their young wordnet
- 12 A home that a child or young adult shares with a parent or guardian.
"I am aspiring to leave the nest."
- 13 A fixed number of cards in some bidding games awarded to the highest bidder allowing him to exchange any or all with cards in his hand.
"I was forced to change trumps when I found the ace, jack, and nine of diamonds in the nest."
- 14 A fortified position for a weapon.
"a machine gun nest"
- 15 A structure consisting of nested structures, such as nested loops or nested subroutine calls.
"Subroutine 4 cannot jump out of the subroutine nest in one step. Each return address must be popped from the stack in the order in which it was pushed onto the stack."
- 16 A circular bed of pasta, rice, etc. to be topped or filled with other foods.
- 17 An aggregated mass of any ore or mineral, in an isolated state, within a rock.
- 18 A collection of boxes, cases, or the like, of graduated size, each put within the one next larger.
- 19 A compact group of pulleys, gears, springs, etc., working together or collectively.
- 20 The pubic hair near a vulva or a vulva itself. US, slang, vulgar
- 1 To build or settle into a nest. intransitive
- 2 gather nests wordnet
- 3 To settle into a home. intransitive
"We loved the new house and were nesting there in two days!"
- 4 move or arrange oneself in a comfortable and cozy position wordnet
- 5 To successively neatly fit inside another. intransitive
"I bought a set of nesting mixing bowls for my mother."
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- 6 fit together or fit inside wordnet
- 7 To place in, or as if in, a nest. transitive
- 8 inhabit a nest, usually after building wordnet
- 9 To place one thing neatly inside another, and both inside yet another (and so on). transitive
"There would be much more room in the attic if you had nested all the empty boxes."
- 10 To hunt for birds' nests or their contents (usually "go nesting"). intransitive
"After the first heavy frost, when acorns were falling, I took a friend into partnership and went nesting."
Etymology
From Middle English nest, nist, nyst, from Old English nest, from Proto-West Germanic *nest, from Proto-Germanic *nestą, from Proto-Indo-European *nisdós (“nest”), literally "where [the bird] sits down", a compound of *ni (“down”) (whence also English nether) + the zero-grade of the root *sed- (“to sit”) (whence also English sit).
From Middle English nesten, nisten, from Old English nistan, nistian, from Proto-West Germanic *nistijan (“to nest, build a nest”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian näästje (“to nest”), Dutch nesten (“to nest”), German Low German nüsten (“to nest”), German nisten (“to nest”).
Two possible origins: * Welsh metronymic surname, from a diminutive of the personal name Agnes. * Borrowed from German Nest (“nest”), probably a topographic surname.
See also for "nest"
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