Gist

How to spell gist

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce gist

What does gist mean?

1. nounThe central or essential point of a speech, argument, or piece of writing.

Gist in a sentence

• I skimmed the report and grasped the gist in a few minutes.

• Give me the gist of the meeting before the client arrives.

Where does gist come from?

Language of origin: French

Gist comes from Anglo-French legal language, where the phrase 'cest action gist' meant 'this action lies', that is, this lawsuit has a valid basis. The form gist was the third-person singular of the Old French verb gésir, meaning 'to lie' or 'to be situated', which descends from the Latin verb jacere, meaning 'to lie down' or 'to be laid'. English lawyers of the 1600s used 'the gist of the action' to mean the essential ground on which a case rested, the very point where the matter lay. From that narrow courtroom sense it broadened during the 1700s into the everyday meaning we use now: the central or essential part of any statement. It is worth noting that although the word looks as if it might start with a hard sound, it has always been pronounced with a soft 'j', which is exactly why people are tempted to misspell it as 'jist'.

How the word is built

• gist (from Old French gist 'it lies', from gésir 'to lie', ultimately Latin jacere 'to lie')