WoF,

yes, the meaning of "jist" that you found was the first thing I saw in that Wiktionary article too. But a few lines down, the same article told me that it also may be used as a noun, and then it is an alternative spelling of "gist". This usage is marked as rare though...

The fact that these sites of the Wikimedia Foundation often have articles about stuff that can be considered rare is one of the facts that I really like about them. Some weeks ago on another forum (really non-developer stuff of course) I needed a translation of "Heiligenschein". My traditional english/german dictionary made of paper, although quite thick, doesn't know the word at all. This word is not really new and although it may not be considered common in everyday language, it is not really that exotic OTOH. The german Wiktionary, although itself not really "thick", had the word.

Well, this was some more off-topic stuff...