Quest
late Middle English: from Old French queste (noun), quester (verb), based on Latin quaerere ‘ask, seek’. See also inquest.
wiktionary
From Middle English quest, queste; partly from Anglo-Norman queste, Old French queste(“acquisition, search, hunt”), and partly from their source, Latin quaesta(“tribute, tax, inquiry, search”), noun use of quaesita, the feminine past participle of quaerere(“to ask, seek”).
etymonline
quest (n.)
c. 1300, "an inquest, a judicial inquiry;" early 14c., "a search for something, the act of seeking, pursuit" (especially in reference to hounds seeking game in the hunt), from Old French queste "search, quest, chase, hunt, pursuit; inquest, inquiry" (12c., Modern French quête), properly "the act of seeking," and directly from Medieval Latin questa "search, inquiry," alteration of Latin quaesitus (fem. quaesita) "sought-out, select," past participle of quaerere "seek, gain, ask" (see query (n.)).
The medieval romance sense of "adventure undertaken by a knight" (especially the search for the Grail) is attested from late 14c. Chaucer has questmonger (late 14c.), "one who profits from an unjust action at law."
quest (v.)
mid-14c., questen, "to seek game, hunt" (in reference to dogs, etc.), from quest (n.) and from Old French quester "to search, hunt," from queste (n.). Related: Quested; questing. Of persons, in the general sense of "go in search, make inquiry," by 1620s. Of hunting dogs, "to bark, bay," as when on the scent of game, mid-14c., hence the questing beast, fabulous animal in Arthurian romances, which was so-called according to Malory for the sound it made:
I am the knyght that folowyth the glatysaunte beste, that is in Englysh to sey the questynge beste, for the beste quested in the bealy with suche a noyse as hit had bene a thirty couple of howndis. ["Le Morte Darthur"]
