Etymology Borrowed from Italian vista (“view, sight”), from visto, past participle of vedere (“to see”), from Latin vidēre (“to see”). Compare vision, video, visa.
1
A distant view or prospect, especially one seen through some opening, avenue or passage.
The sun soon broke forth from that one dark cloud, gradually melting into light; and the sunbeams and the glittering rain went driving together through the forest glades—those long vistas, of which the slender deer seemed the sole habitants.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 271:
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, →ISBN, page 136:
2
A site offering such a view.
3
Figuratively 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
2 more examples
Open up vistas of expansion into hitherto untapped markets.
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 December 27, Michael Andor Brodeur, “The meme class of 2017”, in The Boston Globe:
Etymology Borrowed from Italian vista (“view, sight”), from visto, past participle of vedere (“to see”), from Latin vidēre (“to see”). Compare vision, video, visa.
1
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: