gist
noun · verb
Simple meaning
The choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
jistIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdʒɪst
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
countable
The main idea or substance, or the most essential part, of a longer or more complicated matter; the crux, the heart, the pith.
verb
transitive
To extract and present the main ideas or substance, or the most essential parts of (a document, piece of writing, etc.); to abridge, to summarize.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
Used this way, gist is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It suits considered writing and prepared speech.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Nearby words
- core , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.