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nest
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
nest
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a bird builds a nest
▪ By March many birds have already built nests.
a bird nests
▪ Many birds are nesting on the river banks.
a nesting site
▪ Normally the male swan won’t let other swans near his nesting site.
crow's nest
love nest
nest egg
▪ They had to use part of their retirement nest egg to pay for their son’s college fees.
stirred up a hornets' nest
▪ The new production targets have stirred up a hornets' nest.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
empty
▪ No one ever told me either that a stepmother could suffer so badly from empty nest syndrome.
▪ There will be no empty nest, no shedding of familial responsibilities and expense.
▪ I am swimming away from my friends' deaths, from depression and an empty nest.
▪ Many women enjoy an empty nest.
little
▪ She had flattened the grass, burrowed down and made a cosy little nest for herself.
▪ The dingy flat in Cleghorn Street had been transformed into a cosy little love nest.
▪ This gives the little nest additional stability and so reduces the risk of it being overturned by a gust of wind.
old
▪ Naughty lunches usually wholefood take-aways eaten in Tom's friendly old nest of a bed.
▪ I checked the old abandoned nest.
▪ It looks like scratchings from an old birds' nest.
▪ There was the old dirt dauber nest of yesterday.
▪ Fancy taking you to that tired old love nest.
■ NOUN
box
▪ Estate managers are beginning to implement their own integrated biological and chemical control programmes by erecting nest boxes.
▪ Last week, the tree swallow pair abandoned its nest box in the old birch tree in front of my window.
▪ They've set up nest boxes so its easier to check the population regularly.
▪ But by the next day they were flying in and out of another nest box nearby on the pole by the fireplace.
▪ Forty feet away was a nest box fixed to a tree trunk at a height of 8 feet above the ground.
▪ Faced by these discouragements, all worked hard to reach a nest box.
▪ Pied-fly numbers have increased dramatically since nest box provision has become widespread practice in the sessile oak woods they prefer.
▪ Many of the nest boxes nailed to trunks of trees were occupied.
egg
▪ But it is also a good idea to keep a nest egg for emergencies.
▪ Individuals could invest in stocks and bonds themselves, creating their own retirement nest eggs.
▪ Royal Liver is also sitting on a large nest egg.
▪ In the intervening years, as property taxes ate away at their nest egg, their proposals for other developments fell flat.
▪ Then people with nest eggs in the Branch and most important those with a bit in other institutions.
▪ When properly managed, they offer the prospect of a tidy retirement nest egg.
▪ The nest egg grew and grew; improbably, unbelievably, it grew.
love
▪ The love nest he had conjured out of so little would make up for all her pain.
▪ That apartment is goddamn love nest, right?
▪ She tracked his middle-aged mistress to a caravan-site love nest only two miles from her bungalow home.
▪ Their love nest is the master suite of a glitzy private residence in a new gated Big D community.
▪ The dingy flat in Cleghorn Street had been transformed into a cosy little love nest.
▪ Fancy taking you to that tired old love nest.
▪ Only last week he bought a £550,000 love nest in Henley-on-Thames, Oxon.
site
▪ Table 2.2 Barn owl samples: nest site versus roost site.
▪ A colony of ants on the move from one nest site to another exhibits the Kafkaesque underside of emergent control.
▪ Bone and pellets preserved at an owl's nest site are often exposed to trampling by the owls themselves.
▪ When she provided groups of four birds with three nest sites between them, these problems were overcome.
▪ At one nest site a pair displayed excitedly, preparing for a duty change.
▪ Pellets regurgitated at the nest site may be stepped on and broken up.
▪ By means of his smart plumage and his simple song, the male tries to attract a female to his nest site.
▪ Once he has succeeded, the female enters the nest site and starts to build the nest.
■ VERB
build
▪ The females who were played the reduced repertories turned out to build nests at a lower rate.
▪ They, too, are getting close to the time when they start to build their nests.
▪ Birds have an instinct to build nests.
▪ Little by little the bird builds its nest.
▪ In a month the indigo bunting will sing and build its nest in the brambles.
▪ The females build nests, give birth to their blind and hairless young after a gestation of thirty days.
▪ These birds all sing at intervals, as does the phoebe that has built its nest over my window.
feather
▪ The Bolshoi is full of indolent time-servers, more interested in feathering their nests than in Swan Lake.
▪ In actual fact what he was doing was feathering his own nest at the expense of the nests of the people.
▪ So long as they were in favour, they were free to feather their nests, which Andrei did as industriously as anyone else.
▪ Wetherby may have decided to feather his nest by blackmail.
▪ But they were all like that, more or less, all interested in feathering their nests at his expense.
▪ Two of the others, including the chairman, were using their positions to feather their own nests.
find
▪ The bird, widespread as it is, has resisted the temptation to diverge into numerous kinds found among many nest parasites.
▪ After moving from one room to another for more than a year, I had finally found a cozy nest.
▪ As a result, a cuckoo who was himself brought up by warblers may father an egg found in a redstart nest.
▪ So I stayed and watched to find the nest.
▪ Pigeons: Railway stations, buildings and ledges are where you might find a pigeon's nest.
▪ Any thought I may have had about finding the nest for Crispin's camera left me then.
▪ The first problem that faces the cuckoo is to find a nest belonging to the right species of host.
▪ A single mole carcase was found in the nest, but otherwise the small mammal remains were all found inside the pellets.
fly
▪ The cuckoo had to fly to a new nest, or perish.
▪ Second, it must fly swiftly away from the nest and alight some distance from it.
leave
▪ Barn owls leave the nest at two to three months and are sexually mature at one year.
▪ But after the kids left, the nest was too large.
▪ Young, thickly covered in down, leave nest soon after hatching.
▪ After about three weeks, the young cuckoo is ready to leave the nest.
▪ It went silently, dodging and hiding; it must have left its nest at my approach.
▪ Once deposited, she leaves the nest and he immediately fertilizes the eggs.
▪ It is so rarely when all the fledglings have left the nest, to have them all together again.
▪ When the host leaves the nest, the cuckoo makes its approach in a long, silent hawk-like glide.
make
▪ She will make her nest in the sleeping quarters of the hutch where she will eventually have her litter.
▪ After a while Clarisa came back in with her bag and made a nest for herself on the couch.
▪ But between them, he told himself, they had made this nest comfortable.
▪ The hens made their nests in the barn or wherever else they could, and you searched for the eggs as necessary.
▪ Anyway, it didn't seem to concern her - she would simply make another nest and lay some more.
▪ Then she makes her nest, carrying mouthfuls of bedding to the chosen spot before rooting and pawing it into shape.
▪ Wasps also make nests filled with combs of hexagonal cells, but they build not with wax but with paper.
▪ Birds like making their nests there because it's so quiet and safe.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
empty nest
▪ I am swimming away from my friends' deaths, from depression and an empty nest.
▪ Many women enjoy an empty nest.
▪ No one ever told me either that a stepmother could suffer so badly from empty nest syndrome.
▪ There will be no empty nest, no shedding of familial responsibilities and expense.
feather your nest
▪ But they were all like that, more or less, all interested in feathering their nests at his expense.
▪ So long as they were in favour, they were free to feather their nests, which Andrei did as industriously as anyone else.
▪ The Bolshoi is full of indolent time-servers, more interested in feathering their nests than in Swan Lake.
▪ Wetherby may have decided to feather his nest by blackmail.
fly the nest
hornets' nest
mare's nest
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ About as pleasant to come across as a nest of vipers.
▪ For as long as they had known each other it had been their nest, their retreat, their beautiful private world.
▪ I checked the old abandoned nest.
▪ Individuals could invest in stocks and bonds themselves, creating their own retirement nest eggs.
▪ Several butterfly species live out their caterpillar stage inside an ants' nest.
▪ The female sits inside the nest while the male goes off collecting nest material.
▪ Then ants would crawl through the cracks in the floor and build a big nest in the middle of the bedroom.
▪ Villages are unspoilt, usually built around a medieval church with a stork's nest on top.
II.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
bird
▪ If you approach a pond where these birds are nesting, they will all come swimming up to the bank nearest to you.
▪ The bird has its nesting place, but Imy young are dispersed.
▪ The rectory was a dour red brick house with ivy-clad walls where birds would soon be nesting.
▪ As the riders passed they called out: high-pitched cries which startled the birds that nested in the tree-tops.
▪ Staff at slimbridge were delighted when the birds decided to nest.
▪ Rusting wire-netting lined its upper surface, presumably to prevent birds from nesting there.
cliff
▪ Vultures nested in the cliffs and circled in slow spirals above the camp.
▪ Not a waterside bird, frequenting dry country and nesting on rocky cliffs and stream banks, sometimes on ruined buildings.
▪ House Martins have been recorded nesting on the cliffs occasionally.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
empty nest
▪ I am swimming away from my friends' deaths, from depression and an empty nest.
▪ Many women enjoy an empty nest.
▪ No one ever told me either that a stepmother could suffer so badly from empty nest syndrome.
▪ There will be no empty nest, no shedding of familial responsibilities and expense.
hornets' nest
mare's nest
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ The birds stop briefly to nest and feed.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Cactus wrens and Inca doves nest in thick tangles of mesquite.
▪ I wondered if the kingfisher still nested in the sandy banks there.
▪ In summer petrels nest in crevices in the rocks, and colonies of penguins breed on nearby islands.
▪ Such strong-winged birds as pigeons and hawks stray north in considerable variety, and some of these remain to nest.
▪ The rectory was a dour red brick house with ivy-clad walls where birds would soon be nesting.
▪ The starlings have gone to nest in the hot-air ducts of a concrete and glass mountain in the city centre.
▪ There is no evidence that this species has ever nested in Sussex.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Nest

Nest \Nest\ (n[e^]st), n. [AS. nest; akin to D. & G. nest, Sw. n["a]ste, L. nidus, for nisdus, Skr. n[=i][dsdot]a resting place, nest; cf. Lith. lizdas, Arm. neiz, Gael. & Ir. nead. Prob. from the particle ni down, Skr. ni + the root of E. sit, and thus orig., a place to sit down in. [root] 264. See Nether, and Sit, and cf. Eyas, Nidification, Nye.]

  1. The bed or receptacle prepared by a fowl for holding her eggs and for hatching and rearing her young.

    The birds of the air have nests.
    --Matt. viii. 20.

  2. Hence: The place in which the eggs of other animals, as insects, turtles, etc., are laid and hatched; a snug place in which young animals are reared.
    --Bentley.

  3. A snug, comfortable, or cozy residence or situation; a retreat, or place of habitual resort; hence, those who occupy a nest, frequent a haunt, or are associated in the same pursuit; as, a nest of traitors; a nest of bugs.

    A little cottage, like some poor man's nest.
    --Spenser.

  4. (Geol.) An aggregated mass of any ore or mineral, in an isolated state, within a rock.

  5. A collection of boxes, cases, or the like, of graduated size, each put within the one next larger.

  6. (Mech.) A compact group of pulleys, gears, springs, etc., working together or collectively.

Nest

Nest \Nest\, v. i. To build and occupy a nest.

The king of birds nested within his leaves.
--Howell.

Nest

Nest \Nest\, v. t. To put into a nest; to form a nest for.

From him who nested himself into the chief power.
--South.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
nest

Old English nest "bird's nest, snug retreat," also "young bird, brood," from Proto-Germanic *nistaz (cognates: Middle Low German, Middle Dutch nest, German Nest), from PIE *nizdo- (cognates: Sanskrit nidah "resting place, nest," Latin nidus "nest," Old Church Slavonic gnezdo, Old Irish net, Welsh nyth, Breton nez "nest"), probably from *ni "down" + *sed- (1) "to sit" (see sedentary).\n

\nUsed since Middle English in reference to various accumulations of things (such as a nest of drawers, early 18c.). Nest egg "retirement savings" is from 1700, originally "a real or artificial egg left in a nest to induce the hen to go on laying there" (c.1600).

nest

Old English nistan "to build nests," from Proto-Germanic *nistijanan, from the source of nest (n.). The modern verb is perhaps a new formation in Middle English from the noun. Related: Nested; nesting.

Wiktionary
nest

n. 1 A structure built by a bird as a place to incubate eggs and rear young. 2 A place used by another mammal, fish, amphibian or insect, for depositing eggs and hatching young. 3 A snug, comfortable, or cozy residence or job situation. 4 A retreat, or place of habitual resort. 5 A hideout for bad people to frequent or haunt; a den. 6 A home that a child or young adult shares with a parent, guardian, or a person acting in the capacity of a parent or guardian. A parental home. 7 (context cards English) A fixed number of cards in some bidding games awarded to the highest bidder allowing him to exchange any or all with cards in his hand. 8 (context military English) A fortified position for a weapon, e.g. a machine gun nest. 9 (context computing English) A structure consisting of nested structures, such as nested loops or nested subroutine calls. 10 A circular bed of pasta, rice, etc. to be topped or filled with other foods. 11 (context geology English) An aggregated mass of any ore or mineral, in an isolated state, within a rock. 12 A collection of boxes, cases, or the like, of graduated size, each put within the one next larger. 13 A compact group of pulleys, gears, springs, etc., working together or collectively. vb. 1 (context intransitive of animals English) To build or settle into a nest. 2 (context intransitive English) To settle into a home. 3 (context intransitive English) To successively neatly fit inside another. 4 (context transitive English) To place in, or as if in, a nest. 5 (context transitive English) To place one thing neatly inside another, and both inside yet another (and so on). 6 (context intransitive English) To hunt for birds' nests or their contents (usually "go nesting").

WordNet
nest
  1. n. a structure in which animals lay eggs or give birth to their young

  2. a kind of gun emplacement; "a machine-gun nest"; "a nest of snipers"

  3. a cosy or secluded retreat

  4. a gang of people (criminals or spies or terrorists) assembled in one locality; "a nest of thieves"

  5. furniture pieces made to fit close together

nest
  1. v. inhabit a nest, usually after building; "birds are nesting outside my window every Spring"

  2. fit together or fit inside; "nested bowls"

  3. move or arrange oneself in a comfortable and cozy position; "We cuddled against each other to keep warm"; "The children snuggled into their sleeping bags" [syn: cuddle, snuggle, nestle, nuzzle, draw close]

  4. gather nests

Gazetteer
Wikipedia
Nest (disambiguation)

A nest is a place animals live or raise offspring.

Nest may also refer to:

Nest (album)

Nest is a 1996 album by Odds. It was the band's last album until the release of "Cheerleader" in 2008.

"Someone Who's Cool" was the album's most successful single, peaking at #2 in Canada and top 10 in the United States. "Make You Mad" was also a top 10 hit, and "Nothing Beautiful" peaked outside the top 40.

Nest (band)

Nest is a Finnish neofolk / ambient band. The band's inspiration comes from the old folk and animal tales, as well as from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and the Grimm Brothers. Kantele, a traditional Finnish musical instrument, is very prominent in the band's music. They contributed a cover of the song "The Gallant Crow" to the Skepticism tribute album "Entering the Levitation".

Nest (protein structural motif)

The Nest is a type of protein structural motif. Peptide nests are small anion-binding molecular features of proteins and peptides. Each consists of the main chain atoms of three consecutive amino acid residues. The main chain NH groups bind the anions while the side chain atoms are often not involved. Proline residues lack NH groups so are rare in nests. About one in 12 of amino acid residues in proteins, on average, belongs to a nest. Two websites are available for examining nests in proteins, Motivated Proteins: 1; or PDBeMotif: 2.

NEST

NEST is an abbreviation for one of the following:

  • The Nuclear Emergency Support Team, a team "prepared to respond immediately to any type of radiological accident or incident anywhere in the world"
  • Novell Embedded Systems Technology, a former embeddable networking stack for small devices
  • The Northland Emergency Services Trust, a search and rescue firm
  • The Near East School of Theology
  • The National Training Institute of Education, Science and Technology, a training institute set up by the Korea Ministry of Education, Science and Technology
  • The Nonbiological Extraterrestrial Species Treaty, a fictional military alliance in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
  • National Employment Savings Trust, a new workplace pension scheme that all employers can use for their UK-based workers
  • The NEural Simulation Tool, a simulator for large neural systems
  • National Entrance Screening Test, an entrance exam conducted by the National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar
Nest (magazine)

Nest: A Quarterly of Interiors was a magazine published from 1997 to 2004, for a total run of 26 issues. The first issue was Fall 1997, and the second issue was Fall 1998. Thereafter, the issues were Winter '98-'99, Spring '99, Summer '99, Fall '99, Winter '99-'00, and so on until Fall '04. The founder was Joseph Holtzman. It was published in Upper East Side, New York City.

Marketed as an interior design magazine, and edited by Joseph Holtzman, Nest generally eschewed the conventionally beautiful luxury interiors showcased in other magazines, and instead featured photographs of nontraditional, exceptional, and unusual environments. Fred A. Bernstein, writing in the New York Times, wrote that Joseph Holtzman "believed that an igloo, a prison cell or a child's attic room (adorned with Farrah Fawcett posters) could be as compelling as a room by a famous designer." During its run, Nest showed the room of a 40-year-old diaper lover, the lair of an Indonesian bird that decorates with colored stones and vomit, the final resting place of Napoleon’s penis, the quarters of Navy seamen, a barbed-wire-trimmed bed that doubled as a tank, and a Gothic Christmas card from filmmaker John Waters. Noted architect Rem Koolhaas called it "an anti-materialistic, idealistic magazine about the hyperspecific in a world that is undergoing radical leveling, an 'interior design' magazine hostile to the cosmetic." Artist Richard Tuttle was quoted as saying that Mr. Holtzman "channeled the collective unconscious, to give us the pleasure of ornament before we even knew we wanted it."

NEST (software)

NEST is a simulation software for spiking neural network models, including large-scale neuronal networks. NEST was initially developed by Markus Diesmann and Marc-Oliver Gewaltig and is now developed and maintained by the NEST Initiative.

Nest (The Outer Limits)

"Nest" is an episode of The Outer Limits television show. It first aired on 21 January 2000, the 20th episode of the sixth season.

NeST (Nepalese Society in Trondheim)

Established in 1998, the Nepalese Society in Trondheim is a registered non-profit making voluntary organization of the Nepalese students residing in Trondheim, Norway. The NeST is a voluntary and non-profit making organization of Nepalese students studying at NTNU and HIST. It has about 80 members, mostly students, and other alumni and permanent residents living in Trondheim (Mar 2016).

Following its constitution, members are elected in the Annual General Meeting to form the Executive Committee every year. It has passed more than a decade uniting Nepalese students together, building a rapport with Norwegians and other international students through various kinds of programs like ‘Nepalese Cultural Evening’ and other recreational activities.

Usage examples of "nest".

Nest stood ran almost due south, it would be quicker to continue along it and cross the Acis lower down than to retrace the steps Dorcas and I had already taken and go back to the foot of the postern wall of Acies Castle.

Keith still privately thought of such robots as PHARTs--PHANTOM ambulatory remote toilers--but the Waldahudin had started throwing things when it was suggested that Starplex terminology contained acronyms nested within acronyms.

In a small deep agate nest, one of the boneless beings shifted back and forth.

Its skin mottled and it disappeared against the luminous earth colors of the agate nest.

Nest, but she had given glowing details, cloaked it with such an aura of glamour they had been agog with excitement.

Stepping around, Alec and Micum found him sprawled in a nest of cushions, books, and scrolls with the cat on his chest.

During the present year, however, in the month of July, I came across a community with an unusually large stock of slaves, and I observed a few slaves mingled with their masters leaving the nest, and marching along the same road to a tall Scotch-fir-tree, twenty-five yards distant, which they ascended together, probably in search of aphides or cocci.

The Focke-Wulf and other bombers employed against our shipping must be attacked in the air and in their nests.

CHAPTER XIX RAIDERS BY NIGHT BRENDA SELWOOD was watching from a snug nest - the rocky opening of the Aureole mine shaft - with Jackie Althorn crouched beside her.

Far before him Bibbs saw the great smudge upon the horizon, that nest of cloud in which the city strove and panted like an engine shrouded in its own steam.

The worm would nest in his biochip along with the proposal and would affect his memory of this meetingeven with the Forget-Me-Notusing the same circuits and glands that the chip used to insert data.

An egret perched on a nearby limb swooped down and caught the Bluegill before it even hit the water and took off for its nest, she supposed, where he and the egret-wife and birdlets would share a tasty dinner.

Nest, sipping his fourth cup of Eardley bitters, when Dario returned to the tavern.

They were out on Bear Hill the whole day, beating up the bushes as if for game, scaring old crows out of their ragged nests, and in one dark glen startling a fierce-eyed, growling, bobtailed catamount, who sat spitting and looking all ready to spring at them, on the tall tree where he clung with his claws unsheathed, until a young fellow came up with a gun and shot him dead.

Colonel Bogey had had the foresight to burn a large area of forest clear of nesting wildlife, and thus had not encountered the problem.