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worst

Pronunciation: /wɜːst/

The English word “worst” has 8 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Most inferior; doing the least good.
  2. Most unfavorable.
  3. Most harmful or severe.
  4. Used with the definite article and an implied noun: something that is worst.

noun

  1. Something or someone that is the worst.

verb

  1. To make worse.
  2. To grow worse; to deteriorate.
  3. To outdo or defeat, especially in battle.

Etymology

From Middle English worste, wurste, warste, werste, wirste, from Old English wierrest, from Proto-Germanic *wirsistaz, superlative form of *ubilaz (“bad, evil”); compare worse. Cognate with Old Saxon wirsista, wirrista (“worst”), Old High German wirst, wirsesto, wirsisto (“worst”), Danish værst (“worst”), Swedish värst (“worst”), Icelandic verstur (“worst”).

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.