Also 8 jett, (jest), jut. [By-form of GIST, a. Law Fr. gist, mod.F. gît in the legal phrase action gist or gît ‘action lies,’ taken subst. as the ‘lie’ of the action; cf. the following:
1613. Sir H. Finch, Nomotexnia, 3. [Il] ne girra le foundation de son edifice sur estates, tenures, les gists de briefes ou tiel [i.e., the lie of writs (the cases in which a writ will lie) or the like.]
That wherein the action lies, the real point of an action at law; hence, the substance or pith of a matter; = GIST sb.3
α. 1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), III. lxii. 363. Here comes the jet of the business. Ibid., VIII. x. 54. To point out … where the jet of our arguments lieth.
1777. Sheridan, Sch. Scand., III. i. Sir Pet. But Rowley, I don’t see the jest [some later edd. jet] of your scheme.
1795. trans. Moritz’ Trav. Eng., 57. The jett, or principal point in the debate, is lost in these personal contests.
1813. Dickinson, 5 May, in Hansard’s Parl. Deb., XXV. 1141. The story of the loaf was the whole jet of the case.
1818. Cobbett, Pol. Reg., 483. This is the jet of all her reasoning.
1872. R. Rainy, Lect. Ch. Scotl., iii. (1883), 140. The very jet of the quarrel lay here.
β. 1772. Nugent, trans. Hist. Friar Gerund, II. ii. 287. The whole jut of the business consists in advancing boldly a proposition. Ibid., III. iii. 481. All the jut of which … consists in its being very like that vulgarism.
