Word of the Day

: September 7, 2026

gist

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noun JIST

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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.

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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

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.