jelly: [14] The central idea of ‘coagulation’ takes us back to the ultimate source of jelly, the Latin verb gelāre ‘freeze’ (which also gave English congeal [14]). Its feminine past participle gelāta was used in Vulgar Latin for a substance solidified out of a liquid, and this passed into Old French as gelee, meaning both ‘frost’ and ‘jelly’ – whence the English word. (Culinarily, jelly at first denoted a savoury substance, made from gelatinous parts of animals; it was not really until the early 19th century that the ancestors of modern fruit jellies began to catch on in a big way.) The Italian descendant of gelāta was gelata.
From it was formed a diminutive, gelatina, which English acquired via French as gelatine [19]. Gel [19] is an abbreviation of it. => cold, congeal, gel, gelatine
late 14c., from Old French gelee "a frost; jelly," noun use of fem. past participle of geler "congeal," from Latin gelare "to freeze," from gelu "frost" (see cold (adj.)).
