gist
/d͡ʒɪst/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.18 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The main idea or substance, or the most essential part, of a longer or more complicated matter; the crux, the heart, the pith.
Countable
noun
The essential ground for action in a lawsuit, without which there is no cause of action; the gravamen.
Countable; Dated
noun
A sharable snippet of source code, especially on the version controlled pastebin-hosting site GitHub Gist.
Countable; Uncountable
verb
To extract and present the main ideas or substance, or the most essential parts of (a document, piece of writing, etc.); to abridge, to summarize.
Transitive verb
noun
Example Sentences
- "I don't wanna belabor my point; I'm sure you get the gist."
- "Should they live and build their church in the American wilderness, their worst dangers would rise in and among themselves rather than outside. That was the gist of the lesson from their pastor and "wellwiller" John Robinson."
- "He was handing her something in an envelope, and she was saying “Oh, Jeeves, you've saved a human life,” and he was saying “Not at all, miss.” The gist, of course, escaped me, but I had no leisure to probe into gists."
- "The gists of the reports, however, their logic, their structural coherence, are molded by a concern to reconstruct the past, by antiquarian interest."
- "And the work was going very well. I was really just vomiting images like spoiled sushi (that may be an ill-considered metaphor, but you get my gist)."
- "I don't remember his exact words, but the gist of it was that he wanted it all for nothing, as quickly as possible, without any effort."
Etymology
The noun is derived from Old French gist, a noun use of the third person singular indicative of gesir (“to lie down”) (modern French gésir; compare Anglo-Norman (cest) action gist (literally “(law) (this) action lies”)), from Latin iacēre, the present active infinitive of iaceō (“to lie down, lie prostrate, recline”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(H)yeh₁- (“to throw”) (probably in the sense of something being thrown down). The verb is derived from the noun. The programming sense is a genericized trademark of GitHub Gist, introduced 2008.
Origin
- Source language: Old French
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /d͡ʒɪst/
- British English: /d͡ʒɪst/