An archaic or poetic past tense and past participle form of 'dress,' meaning to clothe oneself or to prepare something.
Old English 'dræstan' or related to 'dress,' an archaic formation. This shortened form appears in older poetry and literature as an alternative to 'dressed,' offering a more compact form for verse where syllable count matters.
Poets loved 'drest' because it saved a syllable compared to 'dressed'—when you're trying to fit words into a strict rhyme scheme or meter, every syllable counts, so Shakespeare and his contemporaries used this form regularly.
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