> (Weirdly, beast and priest sound much the same in French, too.) Not that weirdly :) "beast" and "priest" are loanwords from the Old French "beste" and "prest

> (Weirdly, beast and priest sound much the same in French, too.) Not that weirdly :) "beast" and "priest" are loanwords from the Old French "beste" and "prestre". They then both went through sound changes. English changed the /ɛ/ in both words to a /i/, and in French, the /s/ disappeared.