Also 6 chist, cheist. [f. CHEST sb.1]
1. trans. To put into a coffin. Now chiefly dial.
1473. Warkworth, Chron., 21. On the morwe he was chestyde and brought to S. Paulys.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apoph. (1877), 159, note. A cophin, soche as the carkesses of noble persons ar cheisted in.
1611. Bible, Gen. l. (headnote) Ioseph … taketh an oath of them for his bones. He dieth, and is chested.
1665. G. Havers, P. della Valle’s Trav. E. India, 340. That after-noon, we chested our late slain Commander, putting some great shot with him into it that he might presently sink.
1849–53. Rock, Ch. of Fathers, II. 491. The body was chested.
Mod. Sc. The corpse will be chested this evening.
2. To enclose in a chest or box; to stow away.
1616. R. Carpenter, Christ’s Larumbell, 48. All their mony is little enough … to chest vp in their Treasurie.
1636. R. James, Iter Lanc. (1845), Introd. 47. To cheste Eternall hatred in a mortall brest.
1657. May, Satir. Puppy, 14. He gaue charge his Unkles Wardrobe should be chested up, and kept as Reliques.
1824–9. Landor, Imag. Conv. (1846), II. 39. Serious thoughts are folded up, chested, and unlooked-at.
3. Of a horse: To come against or strike with the chest. (Cf. BREAST v. 1.)
1843. Lever, J. Hinton, xxv. My horse came with full force against it … chesting the tangled branches.
1845. E. Warburton, Crescent & Cross, II. 141. The next moment my mare chested him, and sent him spinning and tangled in his long, blue gown.
1866. Daily Tel., 25 Oct., 5/2. His hand at once the firmest and lightest that ever beguiled a beaten horse to rise at a stiff bit of timber which his neighbours right and left were chesting or declining to negotiate.
Hence Chesting vbl. sb., the putting (of a corpse) into a coffin, ‘with (in Scotland) the entertainment given on this melancholy occasion’ (Jamieson).
1535. Lett., in Strype, Eccl. Mem., I. I. xxxiii. 242. The leading and chesting was preparing.
1552. Huloet, Chestynge of a deade bodye in a close coffyn, or the ministration of baulmynge.
1613. T. Godwin, Rom. Antiq. (1625), 77. Those who had the … chesting … of the dead corps.
Mod. Sc. The chesting has been deferred to enable relatives at a distance to be present.
