Digest

Digest is a term with several distinct meanings across fields. It commonly denotes the biological process of breaking down food, a condensed summary of information, and specific uses in law, computing, and publishing.

In physiology, digestion is the mechanical and chemical breakdown of food so nutrients can be absorbed. It begins in the mouth with chewing and salivary enzymes, continues in the stomach with acid and pepsin, and proceeds in the small intestine where enzymes from the pancreas and bile aid digestion. Nutrients are absorbed through the intestinal lining, while indigestible material is excreted as waste. The process is regulated by hormones and neural signals and supported by the gut microbiota.

As a noun, a digest is a concise compilation or summary of longer texts, articles, or news items. Digest services may assemble a daily or weekly selection for distribution by email or web feeds. In computing, a message digest is a fixed-length representation of input data produced by a hash function, used to verify data integrity or to support digital signatures. Common examples include cryptographic hash algorithms such as MD5 and SHA-1/SHA-256.

In legal tradition, a digest is a systematic collection of legal authorities, principles, or case summaries. Historic digests organized large bodies of law and helped readers locate relevant material. The Digest of Justinian is a foundational example in classical civil law.

In publishing, Digest also refers to general-interest magazines and series, notably Reader’s Digest, which compiles articles and features for broad audiences.