English▸ noun
(plural jellies)
1 a sweet, clear, semisolid spread or preserve made from fruit juice and sugar boiled to a thick consistency.
▪ a clear gelatinous substance made with fruit or other ingredients and eaten with savory foods as a condiment:
roast duck with jalapeño jelly.
▪ mainly British a sweet, fruit-flavored gelatin dessert.
▪ a gelatinous savory preparation made by boiling meat and bones.
▪ any substance of a gelatinous consistency:
spermicidal jellies
frogs lay eggs coated in jelly.
▸ verb
(jellies, jellying, jellied)
[with object] set (food) as or in a jelly: the eels are stewed and jellied.
– ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French gelee ‘frost, jelly’, from Latin gelata ‘frozen’, from gelare ‘freeze’, from gelu ‘frost’.