"lest" meaning in English

See lest in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Preposition

IPA: /lɛst/ Audio: en-us-lest.ogg [US] Forms: lest
Head templates: {{preposition}} [POS TABLE]
  1. If you do something lest something unpleasant happen, you do it to try to prevent the unpleasant thing from happening.
    Sense id: simple-lest-en-prep-JVV5oRvI Categories (other): Formal
     
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "lest",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Preposition"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "preposition"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Formal",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "She said nothing, lest anyone think she didn't agree."
        },
        {
          "text": "He paused, afraid lest he say too much."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "If you do something lest something unpleasant happen, you do it to try to prevent the unpleasant thing from happening."
      ],
      "id": "simple-lest-en-prep-JVV5oRvI",
      "raw_tags": [
        "formal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/lɛst/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-lest.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "lest"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "lest",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Preposition"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "preposition"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "Formal"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "She said nothing, lest anyone think she didn't agree."
        },
        {
          "text": "He paused, afraid lest he say too much."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "If you do something lest something unpleasant happen, you do it to try to prevent the unpleasant thing from happening."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "formal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/lɛst/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-lest.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "lest"
}

Download raw JSONL data for lest meaning in English (0.6kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the simplewiktionary dump dated 2024-12-20 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.