Gist vs Pithy - What's the difference?
gist | pithy |
The most essential part; the main idea or substance (of a longer or more complicated matter); the crux of a matter
* 1948 , , Remembrance Rock , page 103,
*
* 1996 , Nicky Silver, Etiquette and Vitriol , Theatre Communications Group 1996, p. 10:
* 2003 , David McDuff, translating Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment , Penguin 2003 p. 183:
(legal, dated) The essential ground for action in a suit, without which there is no cause of action.
(obsolete) Resting place (especially of animals), lodging.
* 1601 , (Philemon Holland)'s translation of (w, Pliny's Natural History) , 1st ed.,
To summarize, to extract and present the most important parts of.
* 1873 , Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Educational Association, session of the year 1872, at Boston, Massachusetts , page 201:
Concise and meaningful.
* 1825 , ,
* 1873 April 25, (editor), ''The Chemical News ,
* 1876 , ,
Of, like, or abounding in pith.
* 1863 , ,
* 1910 , , Suggestions and Reminders I: For the North, April,
* 1911 , ,
As a noun gist
is the most essential part; the main idea or substance (of a longer or more complicated matter); the crux of a matter.As a verb gist
is to summarize, to extract and present the most important parts of.As an adjective pithy is
concise and meaningful.gist
English
Noun
- "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."
- I was really just vomiting images like spoiled sushi (that may be an ill-considered metaphor, but you get my gist ).
- 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.
book X, chapter XXIII “Of Swallowes, Ousles, or Merles, Thrushes, Stares or Sterlings, Turtles, and Stockdoves.”, p. 282:
- These Quailes have their set gists', to wit, ordinarie resting and baiting places. [These quails have their set ' gists , to wit, ordinary resting and baiting places.]
Verb
(en verb)- There are two general ways of getting information, and these two general ways may be summed up in this: take one branch of study and its principles are all gisted', they have been '''gisted''' by the accumulated thought of years gone by. These ' gisted thoughts are axioms, or received principles,
Anagrams
* *pithy
English
Adjective
(er)- Mr. Lamb, on the contrary, being "native to the manner here," though he too has borrowed from previous sources, instead of availing himself of the most popular and admired, has groped out his way, and made his most successful researches among the more obscure and intricate, though certainly not the least pithy or pleasant of our writers.
- The following passage, which is exquisitely pithy and exquisitely modest, winds up the description:- "In this apparatus there is nothing new but its simplicity and thorough trustworthiness."
- IT was a pithy' saying that of Lorenzo de' Medici, and true as ' pithy , that we are enjoined to forgive our enemies, but nowhere are we told that we should forgive our friends.
- Must we know the torrid zone only through travelled bananas, plucked too soon and pithy ? or by bottled anacondas? or by the tarry-flavored slang of forecastle-bred paroquets?
- Parsnip .—Dig the roots before they grow and become soft and pithy .
- To summarize the characters of a true mushroom - it grows only in pastures; it is of small size, dry, and with unchangeable flesh; the cap has a frill; the gills are free from the stem, the spores brown-black or deep purple-black in colour, and the stem solid or slightly pithy .