noun in singular

1. the substance or essence of a speech or text:

〖the ～〗 要点, 骨子, 趣旨

e.g. she noted the gist of each message.

2. Law the real point of an action:

〘法〙 訴訟の主要訴因

e.g. damage is the gist of the action and without it the plaintiff must fail.

3. Nigerian chat or gossip:

e.g. I decided to spend the night at his place catching up on all the gist from the wedding.

verb no object Nigerian

engage in chat or gossip:

e.g. I need a good friend I can always gist with.

early 18th century: from Old French, third person singular present tense of gesir ‘to lie’, from Latin jacere. The Anglo-French legal phrase cest action gist ‘this action lies’ denoted that there were sufficient grounds to proceed; gist was adopted into English denoting the grounds themselves (gist (sense 2 of the noun)).