abbreviate vs give the gist of

abbreviate

verb
  • To make shorter; to shorten (in time); to abridge; to shorten by ending sooner than planned. 

  • To reduce to lower terms, as a fraction. 

  • To reduce a word or phrase by means of contraction or omission to a shorter recognizable form. 

adj
  • Having one part relatively shorter than another or than the ordinary type. 

give the gist of

How often have the words abbreviate and give the gist of occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )