Other forms: vistas
A vista is a pleasing view, especially a long narrow one framed by trees or buildings. A fine vista, a vista opened up, an avenue with a vista.
In landscape design it is a technical term: a vista is a view deliberately created by cutting a line through planting to a distant object, which is much of what eighteenth-century park design consisted of. Figuratively, a vista is a prospect of what might come: new vistas opened up. Note that vista is more deliberate than view, which is simply what you can see.
1nounvistaA pleasing view, especially a long narrow one.
“At the end of the avenue, a long vista opened up towards the lake.”
2nounprospectA prospect of what might come.
“Her new job opened up exciting vistas for her career.”
vista is a framed view.
The Italian is to see, the same seeing in vision. A vista is a view worth stopping for.
hooks ontovision
Italian vista means a sight, from Latin videre, to see — the same root as vision, video and evident. English borrowed it in the seventeenth century along with most of the vocabulary of formal gardens.
Latin
videō — to see
Italian
vista — view, sight
English, today
vista
Built from
Borrowed from Italian vista (“view, sight”), from visto, past participle of vedere (“to see”), from Latin videō (“to see”). Compare vision, video, visa.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA