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''lest'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260605232103-00-⌔
lest - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Conjunction
lest (formal, literary)
- For fear that; that not; in order to prevent something from happening; in case.
- ✤ Synonym: (informal) before
- ✤ He won’t go outside, lest he be eaten by those ravenous eagles.
- ✤ I brought my notes lest faulty memory lead me astray.
- ✤ I thought to haue told thee of it, but I fear’d/Leaſt I might anger thee.1
- ✤ And then Robert Loo came out swiftly with the half-filled jar lest more be said.2
- ✤ Stay free from petty jealousies/Live by no man’s code/And hold your judgment for yourself/Lest you wind up on this road3
- ✤ * Lest any astrologer reading this result get cocky, Dr Cajochen does not believe that what he has found is directly influenced by the Moon through, say, some tidal effect. What he thinks he has discovered is an additional hand on the body’s clock-face.*4
- (after certain expressions denoting fear or apprehension) that (without the negative particle; introduces the reason for an emotion.)
- ✤ There was danger/alarm lest the plan become known.
- ✤ I am afraid lest I revealed too much.
- ✤ That you and I should be in the same house together and not able to speak to each other is in itself a misery, but this is terribly enhanced by the dread lest this state of things should be made to continue.5
- ✤ [M]y ward, or rather my adopted son Leo Vincey and myself have recently passed through a real African adventure, of a nature so much more marvellous than the one which you describe, that to tell the truth I am almost ashamed to submit it to you lest you should disbelieve my tale.6
- ✤ Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads. So roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with such a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on the veranda.7
Etymology
c. 1200, contracted from Middle English les te (“less that”), from Old English þȳ lǣs þe (“whereby less that”), from þȳ (instrumental case of demonstrative article þæt (“that”)) + lǣs (“less”) + þe (“that,” relative particle). The þȳ was dropped and the remaining two words contracted into leste.8
Pronunciation
Printed 2026-06-28.
(echo:: @ ⌗)
Link to original Footnotes
1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i], page 15, column 2: ↩
1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 565: ↩
1967, “I Am a Lonesome Hobo”, in Bob Dylan (music), John Wesley Harding : ↩
2013 July 27, “Lunacy?”, in The Economist , volume 408, number 8846: ↩
1869 May, Anthony Trollope, “Lady Milborough as Ambassador”, in He Knew He Was Right, volume I, London: Strahan and Company, […], →OCLC, page 81: ↩
1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC: ↩
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC: ↩
Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “lest”, in Online Etymology Dictionary. ↩
Walker, John (1791), “Lest”, in *A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary […] *, London: G. G. J. and J. Robinſon […] and T. Cadell, →OCLC, page 323. ↩
Dobson, E[ric] J. (1957), English pronunciation 1500-1700 , second edition, volume II: Phonology, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1968, →OCLC, § 8, page 471. ↩
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