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Monday, January 23, 2012

Weekly Words No. 8


Containing or getting to the ‘gist’ of the matter, what a wonderful word that is – GIST.

“Gist” means the central idea; the essence of the subject matter, and is synonymous with ‘substance’ – to get to the essence or substance of a matter under discussion.  

The word ‘gist’ has a sound heritage. It comes from the from Anglo-French, as in ‘… cest action gist en …’, meaning “This action consists in ….”,  and, literally, : lies (with)in from the Old French ‘… gésir …’ to lie (within)

There is a direct trace of its origins back to the old language – Latin – in the term ‘… jacēre  …’ from its meaning  “to throw”!

So, If you were throwing your hat into the ring you had better know the gist of the problems facing you! LOL!

1 comment:

Maria said...

ah...now I can say the word "gist" and know exactly what I am talking about.