Other forms: nests, nesting, nested
A nest is the structure a bird builds to lay its eggs in. A bird's nest, build a nest, a nest of twigs and moss.
It is used of other animals too — a wasps' nest, a mouse nest — and figuratively for any snug or hidden place. As a verb it means both to build a nest and to fit inside one another: nesting tables, nested folders, and in programming a nested loop is one inside another. Note empty nest, meaning a home the children have left, and nest egg, which means savings put by for later and comes from the fake egg left in a nest to encourage laying.
1nounnestThe structure a bird builds for its eggs.
“There is a nest in the hedge by the gate.”
2nounplaceA place where insects or small animals live.
“They found a wasps' nest in the roof.”
3verbfitTo fit one inside another.
“The bowls nest so they take up almost no room.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
nest is a built shelter.
Old English nest goes back to a Proto-Indo-European compound meaning sit-down — the ni- of down plus the root that gives sit. A nest is literally a sitting-place, which is precisely what a bird uses it for.
Middle English
nest
English, today
nest
Built from
From Middle English nest. 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 h₁én (“down”) (whence also English nether) + the zero-grade of the root sed- (“to sit”) (whence also English sit).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA