Basic+ Word of the Day: rest

rest (verb, noun) past tense: rested

My dog is resting. He was very tired.

You can eat the rest of the cake. I don’t want it.

If you rest, it means that you relax and don’t do anything that takes effort, like exercise or work.

• The doctor says you should rest.

Rest can also mean that you stop doing something for a period of time because you are tired.

• Why don't you rest? You work too much!

We can use rest to mean ‘the other part,’ or ‘the part that is still there.’

• I only want half this pizza so you can have the rest.

Rest can also mean ‘the other people in a group.’

• I don't like my boss, but the rest of the people at my work are very friendly.

Common uses

When we want someone to stop doing something because it is annoying, we can tell them to give it a rest. For example, “Can you give that loud music a rest? I have a headache.”

In pop culture

We say, “rest in peace” when someone has died. In this song from the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a vampire who is in love with Buffy tells her, “Let me rest in peace, let me get some sleep.” He is dead but he is not “resting in peace.”

There are other meanings of rest.