[Vocabulary] lest

What are the meanings of "lest", and different uses of this word?.

Try lest - definition of lest by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

You won't hear this word very often nowadays. It's a formal word, most often used in the phrase "lest we forget". For examples, see http://corpus.byu.edu

*Not a teacher

lest = in order to prevent any possibility that something will happen (Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

lest = with the intention of preventing (something undesirable); to avoid the risk of (Google Dictionary)

lest = (after a clause indicating fear) Because of the possibility of something undesirable happening; in case (Google Dictionary)


@birdeen's call: I come across this word daily (in my tests). It is usually followed by should.

Example: Let's hail a taxi lest we should miss the train.

SirGod said:

@birdeen's call: I came across this word daily in my tests. It is usually followed by should.

Example: Let's hail a taxi lest we should miss the train.

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I don't understand why tests should feature a word that is so rarely used in modern English. I cannot imagine any native speaker saying that, except in a period drama or a comic sketch.

fivejedjon said:

I don't understand why tests should feature a word that is so rarely used in modern English. I cannot imagine any native speaker saying that, except in a period drama or a comic sketch.

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Same here, fivejedjon. In almost every test there is minimum one question involving lest. The tests also include things like so + adjective + article + noun (so exotic a place), which, personally, I have never heard (movies, TV shows, forums, articles, books etc.).

SirGod said:

Same here, fivejedjon. In almost every test there is minimum one question involving lest. The tests also include things like so + adjective + article + noun (so exotic a place), which, personally, I have never heard (movies, TV shows, forums, articles, books etc.).

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My objection to so + adjective + article + noun is not so strong as my objection to lest we should - I may even use the former construction myself, but it seems pretty pointless in most tests. What are these tests?

fivejedjon said:

My objection to so + adjective + article + noun is not so strong as my objection to lest we should - I may even use the former construction myself, but it seems pretty pointless in most tests. What are these tests?

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They are grammar tests for admission to Police Academy, Foreign Languages and ASE (one of our universities). And the book includes things like "lest... should" because it is highly possible to see them in your exam paper.

I don't understand why tests should feature a word that is so rarely used in modern English.

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I will post its position on this list:

Corpus-based word frequency lists, collocates, and n-grams

if someone tells me it's legal. I guess it is, but I'd like to be sure. If it's not, you can find out yourself.

birdeen's call said:

if someone tells me it's legal. I guess it is, but I'd like to be sure. If it's not, you can find out yourself.

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I think if you will be OK if you quote the position on the list, and then add, changing the date if necessary:

Davies, Mark. (2011) Word frequency data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Downloaded from Corpus-based word frequency lists, collocates, and n-grams on April 06, 2011.

fivejedjon said:

I think if you will be OK if you quote the position on the list, and then add, changing the date if necessary:

Davies, Mark. (2011) Word frequency data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Downloaded from Corpus-based word frequency lists, collocates, and n-grams on April 06, 2011.

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OK, it's in the quote box then. The position is 13 934. Note however that the list has words like "xbrizoides", "davies", "csikszentmihalyi" and that some words appear several times when they're interpreted as different parts of speech. Also "have", "has" and "had" are different words here.

SirGod said:

They are grammar tests for admission to Police Academy,...

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The mind boggles. I'd be very surprised if the average English, American, Australian, etc police officer would recognise a 'lest' if it jaywalked in front of him/her. Why a Romanian police officer should be expected to deal with this is beyond my ken.

Forsooth! Never have I tasted so sweet a donut!

Verily! Yet ought you not proceed with caution, lest it should stain your officer's frock?

birdeen's call said:

The position is 13 934.

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I think that says it all.

@ SirGod,

Is there an approximate equivalent in Romanian of 'lest' that is commonly used in the language? If there is, it would explain, but not justify, why 'lest' appears in the tests so frequently.

fivejedjon said:

I think that says it all.

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I'd say that it says that it's a word that is used sometimes, but not often. Take a look at some of the word's neighbours:

13 921 intrigued (past participle of lexical verb (e.g. given, worked))
13 922 attempts (-s form of lexical verb (e.g. gives, works))
13 923 destroy (base form of lexical verb (e.g. give, work))
13 924 intended (general adjective)
13 927 disgusting (general adjective)
13 930 witness (infinitive)
13 931 negotiating (singular common noun)
13 932 vine (singular common noun)

(All numbers added by me. Explanations copied from UCREL CLAWS7 Tagset)

Of course, all of these words have other forms and "lest" has only one, so they would jump over many one-form words if lemmas were counted instead of distinct strings. But then also "lest" would have a much better position, because the list would be much shorter. I'd say 13 934 is quite a nice achievement for such a word.

PS: I'm feeling quite uncertain about the way I'm using the data. I'd better stop.

birdeen's call said:

PS: I'm feeling quite uncertain about the way I'm using the data. I'd better stop.

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At least you seem to know what lemmas are.

fivejedjon said:

The mind boggles. I'd be very surprised if the average English, American, Australian, etc police officer would recognise a 'lest' if it jaywalked in front of him/her. Why a Romanian police officer should be expected to deal with this is beyond my ken.

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I don't think that they want you to recognize a lest when you hear it. Solving their questions proves them that you have a good knowledge and comprehension of English's grammar, even if their questions are about things rarely or never used in conversations.

fivejedjon said:

@ SirGod,

Is there an approximate equivalent in Romanian of 'lest' that is commonly used in the language? If there is, it would explain, but not justify, why 'lest' appears in the tests so frequently.

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As far as I know, it doesn't have an equivalent on its own, we simply translate it as a phrase. But I highly doubt that someone translating from Romanian into English will translate the phrase as lest.

SirGod said:

They are grammar tests for admission to Police Academy, Foreign Languages and ASE (one of our universities). And the book includes things like "lest... should" because it is highly possible to see them in your exam paper.

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It sounds as if they're using a very traditional syllabus- it strikes me as a rather bizarre item to test for admission to a Police Academy as it's a rare and very formal word.

Tdol said:

It sounds as if they're using a very traditional syllabus- it strikes me as a rather bizarre item to test for admission to a Police Academy as it's a rare and very formal word.

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It is their choice and I am not against it. These things are interesting to me, even if I barely come across them nowadays.

Anaalvarez said:

What are the meanings of "lest", and different uses of this word?.

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Thank you all of you for your answers. I had never heard before this word, but it appears in an article in The Washington Post, taking about American Stars endorse some products.