Word of the Day : September 7, 2026
Gist
nounJIST
What It Means
- Gist, which almost always appears in the phrase “the gist,” refers to the general or basic meaning of something written or said.
- // I found the author’s grandiloquent style of writing intolerable, but I got the gist of the story.
- See the entry
GIST in Context
“His daughter dismissed the film they were watching early on, [Tim] Allen explained, because she’d already got the gist of what was going to happen.” — Steven McIntosh, BBC, 1 June 2026
Vocab Builder:Gist
1 of 3
Which of the following best shows someone getting the gist of a conversation?
A.
She remembers a funny joke that was told, but not what the group was discussing.
B.
He can summarize the main decision that was made, but not who said what.
C.
He can repeat the last few sentences verbatim but has no idea what they mean.
Did You Know?
The main point, overarching theme, essence—that’s gist in a nutshell. The gist of gist, if you will. The gist of a conversation, argument, story, or what-have-you is what we rely on when the actual words and details are only imperfectly recalled, inessential, or too voluminous to recount in their entirety. Gist was borrowed from the Anglo-French legal phrase laccion gist (“the action lies/is based [on]”) in the 17th century, and it was originally used in law as a term referring to the foundation or grounds for a legal action without which the action would not be legally sustainable.
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