gelee

Forms

gelee f (oblique plural gelees)^[1]

• gelede, geleda, jalee, jaleie, jallee, galee, geley, geleye, giellee^[1][2][3]

The Oxford Psalter writes geleda, and Old Picard jallee.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is formed from Old French geler + -ee, the verb being from Latin gelō (“to freeze”).^[3][5] The TLF-Étym considers the derivation very old, as Medieval Latin gelāta is already recorded in the Reichenau glosses in the 9th century;^[3] Gamillscheg and Wiktionary derive the French noun from that Latin participle used as a noun.^[6][1] The Latin verb is formed from gelū (“frost”).^[7] The REW lists the parallel nouns Italian gelata, Old Occitan gelada, Spanish helada and Portuguese geada.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Chanson de Roland, about 1100, in the sense “hoar frost, ice”: Desur lur bronies lur barbes unt getees, Altresi blanches cume neif sur gelee “they have thrown their beards over their mail shirts, as white as snow on frost”.^[3][9][10]

Semantic evolution

Beside frost on the ground, the word named the cold that freezes water: the Oxford Psalter says e les moriers d'els en geleda “and their mulberry trees with frost”.^[3] In Chrétien's Perceval a body is cut by snow, hail and frost.^[11] The phrase estre blanche gelee “to come to nothing” appears in the third quarter of the 13th century.^[3] The sense “jelly”, a juice of meat or fish that sets, is first recorded about 1393 in the Ménagier de Paris, and fruit jelly in 1553.^[3][12] The word continues as French gelée.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1100 – gelee “frost” in the Chanson de Roland.^[3][9][13]
• 1113–1119 – the first insular record cited by the AND.^[14]
• 1140–1160 – geleda in the Oxford Psalter (first half of the 12th century by the TLF-Étym).^[3][15]
• c. 1180 – gelee in Chrétien de Troyes's Perceval.^[11]
• c. 1393 – gelees de poissons “fish jellies” in the Ménagier de Paris.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. frost, hoar frost.^[11][14][2]
2. freezing cold, a cold spell.^[3][1]
3. (late) jelly, a set juice of meat or fish.^[12][3]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads gelee, first cites it from 1113–1119, and records besides “frost” the sense “very white, snow-white”.^[14] Middle English took the word as gele “jelly” in the late 14th century, the source of the English word jelly.^[16][17]

Descendants

• Bourguignon jailée^[1]
• Champenois geulée^[1]
• Franc-Comtois dgeolaie^[1]
• French gelée^[1]
• Lorrain djalâie^[1]
• Walloon djalêye^[1]
• Middle English gele (borrowed; → English jelly, Scots jeely)^[1]

Related words

• geler

Usage notes

The DÉCT notes the DEAF treats the noun inside its article geler.^[11] Tobler–Lommatzsch heads it gelee and lists galee and jalee with it.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 4:225
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Steinfeld, Nadine; Buchi, Éva, eds. (2005–), TLF-Étym: révision des notices étymologiques du Trésor de la langue française informatisé, Nancy: ATILF
4. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 4:86
5. ^ Baldinger, Kurt; Möhren, Frankwalt; Städtler, Thomas, eds. (1971–2021), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF), Heidelberg: Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften; DEAFél / DEAFpré, deaf-server.adw.uni-heidelberg.de, p. s.v. geler
6. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 502
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. gelō
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3714
9. ^ a b UD Old French PROFITEROLE and UD Middle French PROFITEROLE treebanks, Universal Dependencies (from the SRCMF and the Base de français médiéval; texts by DEAF siglum), p. RolS
10. ^ Stein, Achim; Kunstmann, Pierre; Gleßgen, Martin-D., eds., Nouveau Corpus d'Amsterdam, version 4 (lemmatised corpus of Old French texts, after A. Dees), Universität Stuttgart, github.com/michaniets/NCA (texts by DEAF siglum), p. RolS
11. ^ a b c d Dictionnaire électronique de Chrétien de Troyes (DÉCT), LFA / Université d'Ottawa – ATILF, CNRS / Université de Lorraine (2014), p. s.v. gelee
12. ^ a b Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 4:227
13. ^ Möhren, Frankwalt, Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF): Complément bibliographique, electronic version (DEAFBiblEl), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, alma.hadw-bw.de/deafbibl (texts by siglum, with their dates), p. RolS
14. ^ a b c Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. gelee
15. ^ Möhren, Frankwalt, Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF): Complément bibliographique, electronic version (DEAFBiblEl), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, alma.hadw-bw.de/deafbibl (texts by siglum, with their dates), p. PsOxfM
16. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
17. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com