The Etymology of Jelly
Jelly is the cold of an Indo-European winter on a Sunday tea-table.βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ The English noun comes through Old French gelee β meaning both a frost on the grass and a chilled, congealed dish β which is the past participle of geler (to freeze). That verb descends from Latin gelΔre (to freeze), from gelu (frost, cold). Both the frost meaning and the food meaning entered English in the late 14th century, and writers used jelly for either: a winter frost or a quivering dish of set juices. The food sense quickly dominated. The Latin gelu traces back to Proto-Indo-European *gel- (cold, to freeze), one of the most prolific roots in the language family. Its descendants in English include cold (a direct Germanic descendant), gel, gelatin (and the chemical gelation), congeal, glacial, and glacier; in German kalt; in Russian Ρ ΠΎΠ»ΠΎΠ΄ (kholod). When you eat a jelly today, you are putting on your spoon a tiny piece of Indo-European cold β softened, sweetened, and suspended in fruit.