Definition of "prest"

prest¹

/prɛst/

verb
1. (archaic) simple past and past participle of press
  Quotations
  And when loftier mansions prest/Lure of pleasure on their guest
  1850, Lydia Sigourney, Return to Native Land from Poems for the Sea, page 80

prest²

/prɛst/

noun
plural prests
1. (rare) A payment of wages in advance
2. A loan or advance (of money)
  Quotations
  Requiring of the city a prest of six thousand marks.
  1622, Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [i.e. Francis Bacon], The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, […], London: […] W[illiam] Stansby for Matthew Lownes, and William Barret
3. A tax or duty
4. (obsolete) A sum of money paid to a soldier or sailor upon enlistment
5. (law) A duty in money formerly paid by the sheriff on his account in the exchequer, or for money left or remaining in his hands.
  Quotations
  the same tayles soe hereafter there to be levyed and striken, shalbe delyvered unto everye of the same Sheriffes […] without prest or other chardge to be sett upon them for the same.
  1548, King Edward VI, Act 2

prest³

/prɛst/

verb
third-person singular simple present prests, present participle presting, simple past and past participle prested
1. (obsolete, transitive) To give as a loan; to lend.
  Quotations
  a greate part of our armie already prested, and in our wages to go forward
  1550, Edward Hall, Chronicle
adjective
comparative more prest, superlative most prest
1. (obsolete) Ready; prompt; prepared.
2. (obsolete) Neat; tidy; proper.
  Quotations
  False knave ready prest, All safe is the best
  1557 February 13, Thomas Tusser, A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie., London: […] Richard Tottel; republished London: […] Robert Triphook, […], and William Sancho, […], 1810,
3. (obsolete) Quick, brisk.
  Quotations
  The fauconer then was prest,Came runnynge with a dow,And cryed, ‘Stow, stow, stow!’But she wold not bow.
  c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, page 63, lines 71–74