gelare

Forms

gelare (first-person singular present gèlo, first-person singular past historic gelài, past participle gelàto, auxiliary (transitive or impersonal) avére or (intransitive or impersonal) èssere)^[1] Old Italian also wrote gielare.^[2][3][4] Northern texts have forms with ⟨ç⟩ or ⟨z⟩, such as çelato and zelao.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin gelō (“to freeze”), a verb made in Latin from gelū (“frost, cold”).^{[6][7][8][1][9]} The verb is French geler, Occitan gelar, Catalan gelar, Spanish helar and Portuguese gear.^[7][10] DEI calls it pan-Romance except for Romanian, which has only the compound Romanian degera (“to get frostbitten”).^[2][10]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *gelus and Proto-Indo-European *ǵel-u- (“cold, frost, ice”), with cognates in Old English calan (“to freeze”) and Old Norse kala (“to freeze”); the English adjective cold is of the same root.^[9][1][11] By regular sound change the Latin noun should have become ⟨golu⟩; de Vaan assumes that ⟨e⟩ was restored from gelidus (“icy”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Bono Giamboni, before 1292, in the sense “to suffer badly from the cold”.^[6] The TLIO's first example is in the Milanese poems of Bonvesin de la Riva, for water turning into ice.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the verb figuratively: to go cold and stiff with fear, of a lover's state, of a heart that grows cold to goodness and love, and of a feeling that loses its strength.^[5] The intransitive sense “to become ice” is in the Libro di Sydrac (14th century), and a translation of Gregory the Great says La brinata gela in terra, ma la neve cade gelata dal cielo (“Hoarfrost freezes on the ground, but snow falls from the sky already frozen”).^[6][12] The impersonal use for frosty weather is recorded before 1597, and the transitive “to freeze, chill” in 1681.^[6]

The family grew around the past participle: gelato as an adjective from the 13th century and as a noun, ice cream, from before 1803, with gelataio (1893) and gelateria (1901).^[7] Modern sport has added gelare la palla in basketball, keeping possession to run down the clock.^[13]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses gelare for suffering from cold.^[6]
• 13th century – Bonvesin de la Riva uses it for water freezing.^[5]
• 14th century – The Libro di Sydrac uses it for turning into ice.^[6]
• Before 1597 – The impersonal use is recorded in Soderini.^[6]
• 1681 – Bartoli uses it transitively.^[6]
• Before 1803 – Gelato “ice cream” is recorded.^[7]
• 1901 – Gelateria is recorded.^[7]
• 1964 – Surgelare is recorded.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To freeze, turn into ice: Il freddo di gennaio ha gelato la fontana del paese.^[8][13]
2. To cover with ice or frost; to damage by frost: La brinata di aprile ha gelato i germogli.^[8][13]
3. To chill, numb: Il vento mi gelava le orecchie.^[8][3]
4. (figurative) To dismay, embarrass into silence: Il suo commento gelò la sala.^[8][14][13]
5. (intransitive) To freeze, turn to ice; to feel very cold: Spegni il condizionatore, sto gelando!^[8][3]
6. (impersonal) To be freezing, to frost: Stanotte in montagna gelerà.^[8][3][14]
7. Of milk, to curdle.^[8][3]
8. (basketball) gelare la palla, to keep possession without shooting near the end of a game.^[13]

Word family

• gelata
• gelato
• gelatina
• congelare
• raggelare
• rigelare
• sgelare
• disgelare
• surgelare

Related words

• gelo
• Latin gelū
• French geler

Usage notes

Used intransitively the verb takes essere; used impersonally it takes essere or avere (è gelato or ha gelato last night).^[1][3][14] Gelare il sangue means to terrify, and sentirsi gelare to be seized by fear or horror.^[13][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1778
3. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 6, 627
13. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana