Chest

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /t͡ʃɛst/

Definitions

1. A large, sturdy box with a hinged lid used for storing items, or the upper front part of the human body between the neck and abdomen
2. A sturdy container often used for storage, or the torso area of a person located between the neck and the abdomen
3. An enclosed box for keeping valuables or the anatomical region in humans that houses vital organs between the neck and abdomen

Etymology: The body part "chest" and the storage box "chest" are not related by origin at all. The box sense comes from Latin "cista", a word for a box or basket, which the Greeks had already borrowed as "kistē". It reached English through Old English "ċest" and "ċist" and kept the meaning of a casket, coffin, or rush basket before narrowing to the familiar piece of furniture. The bodily sense has a different and more surprising ancestry. It is generally traced to a separate Old English word, "ċēast", meaning strife, quarrel, or contention, which is also linked to Old Saxon "caest" and Old High German "kōsa", meaning speech or account. How a word for a dispute came to name the upper body is not something the sources explain, so the two senses are best understood as an accident of English sharing one spelling.

Synonyms: box, container, case, trunk, repository

Antonyms: open space, emptiness