gist
The verdict
“gist” is uncommon French (frequency #90,770 among 2,617 “G” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #90,770
- frequency rank, French
- 2,617
- “G” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Essentiel, point essentiel, substance.
Corpus desk
Index FR-gist · gist · French
gist · rank #90,770 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #90,770
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,617
- PHOTO-FINISH Girodet
Nearest frequency peer: Girodet (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rangs de longue queue près de « gist »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- gigote
gigote
9,234 corpus weight
- giratoires
giratoires
9,233 corpus weight
- Girodet
Girodet
9,232 corpus weight
- gist
gist
9,231 corpus weight
- glaires
glaires
9,229 corpus weight
- glandulaire
glandulaire
9,228 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « gist » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gist |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #90,770 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « gist » en français
Rare enough to double-check
gist is uncommon French at frequency #90,770 among 2,617 “G” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Essentiel, point essentiel, substance.".
Zero misspellings are on record for gist in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is gist, spelled G-I-S-T.
Definition
- 1Essentiel, point essentiel, substance.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how gist appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
That’s probably not exactly what he said, but that's the gist of it. – Ce n’est sans doute pas exactement ce qu’il a dit, mais c’en est la substance.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "gist", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).