Other forms: resting, rests, rested
To rest is to stop for a while so your body can recover. Sitting down on a wall halfway up the hill, bag on the ground, breathing.
Rest is the noun as well — "have a rest", "a day of rest" — and also a thing that holds something up: an armrest, a headrest, a rest for your foot. Something rests ON or AGAINST something: the ladder rests against the wall, her elbow rests on the table. Then there is "the rest", meaning everything left over: "I ate the rest of the cake." In music a rest is a measured silence, written on the stave like a note and counted just as carefully. And "rest assured" is a fixed phrase meaning you can stop worrying about it.
1verbrestTo stop activity for a while so that you recover.~2%
“You should rest for a few days after the operation.”
synonyms: relax
2nounperiodA period of stopping activity in order to recover.~29%
“Let's take a short rest at the top of the hill.”
3verblieTo lie on or be supported by something.~2%
“The ladder rested against the wall all night.”
4nounleftThe part that is left; the others.~63%
“I'll finish the rest of the report tomorrow.”
5nounbodyA support for a part of the body or for an object.~2%
“He put his arm on the rest between the two seats.”
6nounmusicIn music, a silence of a set length.~2%
“There is a two-beat rest before the chorus comes back.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 22 sentences found in the wild and placed 19 of them on a sense (3 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: relax
Rest goes back through Old English ræst to Proto-Germanic *rastō, with German Rast, Dutch rust and Swedish rast still standing beside it. Past that the trail forks: it may come from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to rest", or from one meaning "to flow, to rush". Nothing in that line explains the other rest, the one that means the remainder — that is a separate word.
Middle English
reste
English, today
rest
Built from
From Middle English reste. From Middle English rest, reste, from Old English ræst, from Proto-West Germanic rastu, from Proto-Germanic rastō, of uncertain origin; possibly derived from Proto-Indo-European h₁reh₁- (“to rest”) or Hre(h₁)s- (“to flow, rush”). Cognate with West Frisian rêst (“rest”), Dutch rust (“rest”), German Rast (“rest”), Swedish rast (“rest”), Norwegian rest (“rest”), Icelandic röst (“rest”), Old Irish árus (“dwelling”), German Ruhe (“calm”), Albanian resht (“to stop, pause”), Welsh araf (“quiet, calm, gentle”), Lithuanian rovà (“calm”), Ancient Greek ἐρωή (“rest, respite”), ae 𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬨𐬈 (“calm, peaceful”), Sanskrit रमते (“he stays still, calms down”), Gothic 𐍂𐌹𐌼𐌹𐍃 (“tranquility”). Related to roo.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA