vista

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian vista (“view, sight”), from visto, past participle of vedere (“to see”), from Latin vidēre, present active infinitive of videō (“I see”). Compare vision, video, visa.

noun

1. A distant view or prospect, especially one seen through some opening, avenue or passage.
   We had our reward for our high camp and early start, for the sky was still clear, the view magnificent, with fresh vistas to the north of mountains in Tibet, of Gurla Mandhata, massive, majestic to the northeast, and further to the north, a distant pyramid, Kailash, most holy of all mountains in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology. 1999, Harish Kapadia, “Ascents in the Panch Chuli Group”, in Across Peaks & Passes in Kumaun Himalaya, New Delhi: Indus Publishing Company, page 136
2. A site offering such a view.
3. (figurative) A vision; a view presented to the mind in prospect or in retrospect by the imagination.
   a vista of pleasure to come
   dim vistas of the past
   And while our discourse might be a disaster area, the imaginative vistas of the Internet are far more vast than the modest plot of our feeds. 2017-12-27, Michael Andor Brodeur, “The meme class of 2017”, in The Boston Globe

verb

1. (transitive) To make a vista or landscape of.
   The night had now closed in, and its darkness was only relieved by the wan lamps that vistaed the streets, and a few dim stars that struggled through the reeking haze that curtained the great city. 1896, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Eugene Aram