lestとは

発音

• IPA^(key): /lɛst/

• 韻: -ɛst

接続詞

lest

1. (Can we clean up⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) For fear that; that […] not; in order that […] not; in case.
   • 1610-11?, Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV, scene i:

     I thought to have told thee of it, but I fear'd / Lest I might anger thee.

   • 1967, Bob Dylan (music), “I Am a Lonesome Hobo”, in John Wesley Harding‎^[1]:

     Stay free from petty jealousies / Live by no man's code / And hold your judgment for yourself / Lest you wind up on this road

   • 2013 July 27, “Lunacy?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8846:

     Lest any astrologer reading this result get cocky, Dr Cajochen does not believe that what he has found is directly influenced by the Moon through, say, some tidal effect. What he thinks he has discovered is an additional hand on the body’s clock-face.

   He won't go outside, lest he be eaten by those ravenous eagles.

2. That (without the negative particle); – after certain expressions denoting fear or apprehension.
   • 1868, Anthony Trollope, He Knew He Was Right XI

     ‘That you and I should be in the same house together and not able to speak to each other is in itself a misery, but this is terribly enhanced by the dread lest this state of things should be made to continue.’

   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 4, in The Celebrity:

     Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads. So roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with such a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on the veranda.

使用する際の注意点

The word lest is always followed by the subjunctive mood, usually in either the present or future tense.

For example: Lest they be captured, the soldiers fled from the battlefield.

The future subjunctive would simply employ the auxiliary word should.

同意語

• (for fear that): before (くだけた用法)

参考

• judge not lest ye be judged
• in case
• lest we forget

参照

アナグラム

• ELTs, LETS, LTEs, TESL, elts, let's, lets, tels