jelly

UK/ˈd͡ʒɛli/US/ˈd͡ʒɛli/

nounA2Common in everyday speech and writing · #3,035 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: jellies

Jelly is a wobbly sweet set with gelatine. A bowl of jelly, jelly and ice cream, set the jelly.

Gelatine sets as its long molecules tangle on cooling and melts again just below body temperature, which is why jelly dissolves in the mouth. Fresh pineapple and kiwi stop it setting, because they contain an enzyme that cuts the protein. In American English, jelly is a clear fruit spread and jam has the fruit in it.

Definitions of jelly

1nounjellyA wobbly sweet dish set with gelatine.A2
“The kids had jelly and ice cream at the birthday party.”

jelly is a food.

Where it comes from

Old French gelee means a frost or jelly, from geler, to freeze, from Latin gelare. Gel and gelatine come from the same freezing.

Proto-Indo-European
*gel-
Middle English
gele
English, today
jelly

From Middle English gele. a doublet of gelee.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Food & Drink

Practise this word

jelly in the wild

Jelly beans are small bean-shaped sugar candies with soft candy shells and thick gel interiors (see gelatin and jelly).
Jelly bean
In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has taken legal action against companies that have marketed royal jelly products using unfounded claims of health benefits.
Royal jelly
A jelly doughnut, or jam doughnut, is a doughnut with a fruit preserve filling.
Jelly doughnut
The earliest recorded mention of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich appeared in 1901, suggesting it as a tea sandwich.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwich

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

jellyfish

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