chested

1. 1
   adjectivein compounds

   Having a chest of a specified quality or appearance, as indicated by the modifying word it attaches to.

   The wrestler was barrel-chested, with shoulders to match.

   Breeders prize a deep-chested hound for its stamina on long hunts.

   Note

   The adjective lives as the second half of a compound: flat-chested, barrel-chested, Bulwer-Lytton's "vast-chested Edward." The first element can even take a comparative, as in Bryant's Iliad, where Ajax is "broader-chested than the rest." The compound also reaches past bodies: DuBose Heyward's Porgy (1925) has laughter "deep-chested and glad," meaning resonant. The hyphen stays even after the noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Past tense and past participle of chest.

   The forward chested the ball down before striking it cleanly.

   The cross was chested into the net in the final minute.

   Note

   A regular verb, so one form serves as both past and participle: she chested the ball down, the cross was chested in. Usually it means hitting something with the chest, as a footballer does. It can also mean storing something in a chest. In older English it meant laying a body in a coffin, and in African English it means to handle or deal with. Spelled like the adjective in barrel-chested, it is a verb only when something gets chested.

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