Meaning

5 senses
  1. (countable)The main idea or substance, or the most essential part, of a longer or more complicated matter; the crux, the heart, the pith.

    I don't wanna belabor my point; I'm sure you get the gist.

    Hauptinhalt, Hauptpunkt, Kern

    смыслsmysl, су́щностьsúščnostʹ, сутьsutʹ

    the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience

  2. (countable, dated)The essential ground for action in a lawsuit, without which there is no cause of action; the gravamen.

  3. (Nigeria, uncountable)Gossip, rumour; (countable) an instance of this.

  4. (countable, uncountable)A sharable snippet of source code, especially on the version controlled pastebin-hosting site GitHub Gist.

  5. (obsolete)A stop for lodging or rest in a journey, or the place where this happens; a rest.

Examples

15 sentences
  1. I got the gist of what he was saying.

    ruЯ понял суть его слов.

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  2. Tom only got the gist of what Mary was saying.

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  3. I get the gist of it.

    CC BY · Tatoeba · megamanenm · C1Open on TatoebaReport a problem
  4. That's the gist of it, I think.

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  5. I told him the gist of my thought.

    CC BY · Tatoeba · rul · C1Open on TatoebaReport a problem

Translations

8 languages
Русский
By meaning 1
main idea or substance, or the most essential part, of a longer or more complicated matter — see also crux, essence, pith:
Deutsch
By meaning 1
main idea or substance, or the most essential part, of a longer or more complicated matter — see also crux, essence, pith:

Origin

The noun is derived from Old French gist, a noun use of the third person singular indicati

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).

From Middle English giste, geste (“resting or stopping place, hostel, lodgings; food, refreshment; (figurative) seat of the soul”), from Old French giste (“resting place”) (modern French gîte (“lodging, shelter; self-catering holiday home”)), a noun use of the past participle form of gesir (“to lie down”): see etymology 1.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

plural: gists
Singulargist
Pluralgists

regular

Synonyms

35 synonyms
Close in meaning

Word family

1 related words
Derivedgists

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
gist — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto