jellyfish

Etymology

It is formed from English jelly + fish,^[2][3][4][5] for the animal's soft, jelly-like body.^[3][6] Jelly is from Middle English gelee, from Old French gelee (“a jelly; frost”), a noun use of the feminine past participle of geler (“to freeze, congeal”), from Latin gelō (“to freeze, congeal”),^[3][2] and fish is from Old English fisc.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, in 1707, is for a fish, a lancetfish whose flesh is soft and gelatinous; this sense is rare and obsolete.^[2][4][6] Etymonline also notes this use of 1707.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The name moved to the soft, bell-shaped sea animals, the medusas, in 1758 according to the OED, in W. Borlase's Natural History of Cornwall,^[2] although Etymonline dates this sense to 1796 and Merriam-Webster's Unabridged and the Historical Thesaurus to 1841.^[3][7][6] Jelly alone had been used for such an animal since before 1668.^[2] The figurative sense, a weak, ineffectual or cowardly person, followed in 1870 in the OED's record,^[2] 1883 in Etymonline's.^[3][6] In American slang the word was also an adjective, "weak, spineless" from 1892 and, in college slang of about 1901, "common, ordinary", as in a jelly-fish girl.^[8]

Timeline

• before 1668 – jelly, a jellyfish.^[2]
• 1707 – a lancetfish with soft, gelatinous flesh (now obsolete).^[2][3]
• 1758 – a medusa or similar soft-bodied sea animal.^[2] Etymonline dates this sense to 1796, Merriam-Webster's Unabridged to 1841.^[3][7]
• 1870 – a weak, ineffectual or cowardly person.^[2] Etymonline dates the figurative use to 1883.^[3]
• 1892 – US slang adjective, weak, spineless.^[8]
• 1901 – US college slang adjective, common, ordinary.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A free-swimming sea animal, a cnidarian with a soft, gelatinous, often bell-shaped body and stinging tentacles, especially one of the class Scyphozoa: The beach was closed after a swarm of jellyfish drifted in.^{[9][10][7][2]}
2. (informal) A weak person, lacking backbone or force of character.^{[9][10][11][2]}
3. (obsolete, 1707) A lancetfish with soft flesh.^[2][4]

Word family

• box jellyfish
• moon jellyfish

Related words

• jelly
• fish
• gelatin
• congeal

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
7. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers