Other forms: bequests
A bequest is something left to somebody in a will. A generous bequest, leave a bequest, a bequest to the museum.
Strictly a bequest is personal property and a devise is land, a distinction the law keeps and ordinary speech does not. Museums and universities depend on them heavily, and many collections exist only because of one. Note bequeath, the verb; and that the word is be- plus an old noun meaning a saying.
1nounbequestSomething left to somebody in a will.
“The museum received a generous bequest from a local collector who died last year.”
bequest is a gift in a will.
Middle English biqueste is be- plus an old word meaning a saying, from the root of quoth. Bequeath comes from the same saying.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷet- — to say
Proto-Germanic
*kwissiz — saying
Old English
*cwist
Middle English
biqueste
English, today
bequest
Built from
From Middle English biqueste, bequeste (“will, testament, bequest”), from be + quiste, queste, from Old English cwist, cwiss (“saying”) (compare Old English andcwiss, ġecwis, uncwisse, etc.), from Proto-Germanic kwissiz (“saying”), from Proto-Indo-European gʷet- (“to say”). Related to Old English andcwiss (“answer, reply”), Old English uncwisse (“dumb, mute”), Middle English bequethen (“to bequeath”). Not related to quest, which is from Latin. More at quoth, bequeath.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA