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START / NODE 142Present-Day English13th century–today
guest
A person receiving hospitality, inherited through Old English from the Germanic branch of reconstructed *ghos-ti-.
“Guest and hostile meet at the same reconstructed stranger: Germanic preserved the visitor, while Latin hostis narrowed the outsider into an enemy.”OPEN COMPLETE WORD DOSSIER ↗
EVERY REVIEWED PARENT, NOT ONE EDITORIAL PATH
FOLLOW EVERY BRANCH.
Compound components and competing routes stay separate. Every arrow retains its sound change, semantic change, scholar, confidence, and exact sources.
01
PARENT ROUTES1 REVIEWED RELATIONSHIP
Present-Day Englishguest
a person receiving hospitality; a visitor
↑GO DEEPER
Middle English · Middle Englishgest / gyst / gust / gistguest, visitor, stranger
- SOUND CHANGE
- Middle English gest and related variants developed into modern guest; the modern spelling distinguishes the hard initial consonant without changing the inherited base.
- SEMANTIC CHANGE
- The visitor receiving hospitality remained the central sense.
- SCHOLAR
- Merriam-Webster editors
- CONFIDENCE
- established
- CHRONOLOGY
- First known use: 13th century.
THE ASTERISK IS A PROMISE
RECONSTRUCTION IS
NOT INSCRIPTION.
Crossing into a starred form changes the evidence class. The interface marks that crossing, preserves confidence, and never manufactures the next root to make the picture look complete.