gist
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /d͡ʒɪst/
rhymes: -ɪst
Forms: form: gists
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.
Senses: examples: text: I don't wanna belabor my point; I'm sure you get the gist.
text: 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.
ref: 1948, Carl Sandburg, “Store We Up therefore Patience”, in Remembrance Rock, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace & World, →OCLC, part 2, page 103:
text: 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.
ref: 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XIX, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:
text: The gists of the reports, however, their logic, their structural coherence, are molded by a concern to reconstruct the past, by antiquarian interest.
ref: 1988, Baruch Halpern, “Sisera and Old Lace: The Case of Deborah and Yael”, in The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History, San Francisco, Calif.: Harper & Row, →ISBN, part 1 (Romance and Historiography: Two Cases of Historiography in Microcosm), page 97:
text: 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).
ref: 1994 July 15 (first performance), Nicky Silver, “The Food Chain”, in Etiquette and Vitriol, The Food Chain and Other Plays, New York, N.Y.: Theatre Communications Group, published November 1996, →ISBN, scene i (Amanda), page 10:
text: 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.
ref: 2003, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, chapter V, in David McDuff, transl., Crime and Punishment, revised edition, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, part 2, page 183:
text: There's evidence that even our unconscious efficiently only stores the gists of memories and that to fill in details our conscious fabricates them.
ref: 2004, Paul Dehn Carleton, “Un- to CONSCIOUSness”, in Concepts: A ProtoTheist Quest for Science-minded Skeptics of Catholic, and Other Christian, Jewish & Muslim Backgrounds, Pontiac, Mich.: Carleton House, →ISBN, part II (Science Concepts), page 131:
synonyms: essence
quintessence
thrust
glosses: The main idea or substance, or the most essential part, of a longer or more complicated matter; the crux, the heart, the pith.
examples: text: [T]heſe charges, of a traiterous or felonious intent, are the points and very giſt of the indictment, and muſt be anſvvered directly, by the general negative, not guilty; […]
ref: 1769, William Blackstone, “Of Plea, and Issue”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book IV (Of Public Wrongs), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 333:
text: [H]e is guilty of a dereliction of opinions that are true and laudable. This is the great giſt of the charge againſt him.
ref: 1791 August 3, [Edmund Burke], An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, […], London: […] J[ames] Dodsley, […], →OCLC, page 30:
text: But it is observable that the substance or gist of the action is not always the principal cause of the plaintiff's complaint in point of fact, nor that on which he recovers all or the greatest part of his damages. It frequently happens that upon that part of his declaration which contains the substance or gist of the action he recovers nominal damages, and he gets his principal satisfaction on account of matters altogether collateral thereto.
ref: 1839, John Bouvier, “GIST”, in A Law Dictionary, […], volumes I (A–K), Philadelphia, Pa.: T. & J. W. Johnson, […], successors to Nicklin & Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 445, column 1:
text: Naturally, therefore, conceiving that the gite of the lawyer's reasoning was to defend the want of resemblance as an admitted fact, which it would be useless to deny, the worthy magistrate closed the pleadings, and gave sentence against Mr Whelp, the plaintiff.
ref: [1859, F. Laun [pseudonym], “The King of Hayti. From the German. Chapter III. ‘In the Second Place’—Dinner is on the Table.”, in Thomas De Quincey, transl., Speculations Literary and Philosophic: With German Tales and Other Narrative Papers (De Quincey’s Works; XII), London: James Hogg & Sons, →OCLC, page 41:
topics: law
glosses: The essential ground for action in a lawsuit, without which there is no cause of action; the gravamen.
glosses: Gossip, rumour; (countable) an instance of this.
examples: text: For a simple illustration of the issue, take a look at this gist.
ref: 2014 November 20, Colin Eberhardt, “Swift Initialization and the Pain of Optionals”, in Scott Logic:
text: Every gist created is a tiny repository. You can update gists and see the history using git log. You can download gists, hack on the repository, […]
ref: 2016 February 8, Chris Dawson, Ben Straub, “Gists and the Gist API” (chapter 2), in Building Tools with GitHub, O'Reilly:
text: For example, findOrCreate can be implemented as a before-hook on the service's get method. See this gist for an example of how to implement this in a before-hook.
ref: a. 2023, “FAQ”, in Feathers:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
programming
sciences
glosses: A sharable snippet of source code, especially on the version controlled pastebin-hosting site GitHub Gist.
Synonyms: word: bowels
word: brass tacks
word: core
word: crux
word: essence
word: gist
word: drift
word: guts
word: gravamen
word: heart
word: heart and soul
word: heartstring
word: heartstrings
word: inwardness
word: kernel
word: marrow
word: meat
word: moral of the story
word: nitty-gritty
word: nub
word: nuts and bolts
word: pith
word: punctum saliens
word: quintessence
word: soul
word: spirit
word: stuff
word: substance
word: tenor