English, via Old French, from Latin
queste
Quest
quest
A seeking. Medieval romance made it a structured hunt. Epic did not always name itself this way.
Etymology
Latin quaerere, to seek. Old French queste. Middle English queste / quest. The literary sense (a structured seeking, often of a grail, a person, a proof) is medieval. The fact that we now call certain stories quests does not mean their original cultures named them that way.
Historical usage
Arthurian quest is a specific medieval narrative machine. Gilgamesh is not automatically a quest because he seeks something. Jonah is not a quest.
Later development
Game design and role-playing inherited quest as a task with a reward. That is a modern office. It should not be back-read as the essence of epic.
Why it matters here
Use quest sparingly, for roads whose explicit work is seeking a named object or person. Classify Gilgamesh carefully. Do not stamp the word on every departure.
Stories that hold this word
Relationship type is not optional
A word present in a source text is not the same as a later critical term applied to that story.
Later critical term
GilgameshLater English applied with caution. He seeks; the poem does not name itself a quest.
Related
Later critical term
Gilgamesh