quest

First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English noun queste, from Old French, from Latin quaesīta, feminine past participle of quaerere “to seek”; Middle English verb derivative of the noun

The Middle English noun quest, originally meaning “inquest, judicial inquiry,” also, in hunting, “a search after game, baying of hounds,” comes partly from Old French queste with the same meanings. Quest also comes from Medieval Latin questa, quaesta, short for rēs quaesita, “a thing sought out, a question,” from the feminine past participle of quaerere “to try to find, seek, seek out.”
Quest in the hunting sense “baying of hounds” first appears in the wonderful Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (about 1390). In Arthurian and chivalric romances, quest in the sense “an expedition undertaken by a knight or band of knights to attain a specific goal” dates from Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (1485).