Gelo
Published: 2021-12-10The English word “congeal” means “to change from a liquid or soft state to a thick or solid state”, or simply “to freeze”. This word is composed of the prefix “con-“ meaning “together” and the Latin word “gelō” meaning “I freeze”.
This Latin word “gelō” is found in many English words, especially those related to certain substances:
There are some more technical terms, although I don’t know what they are: “gelifluction”, “gelignite”. The word “gelid” meaning “extremely cold” is not a technical term, but it is rare today.
The Latin “gelō” comes from the PIE “*gel-“ (meaning “to be cold, to freeze”3), which is where the English word “glacier” ultimately comes from.
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U.S. /ˈdʒɛlətn/ ↩
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The plurals of “words from Italian that end in the letter ‘o’” tend to be formed by replacing the “o” with the letter ‘i’ (e.g. paparazzo -> paparazzi, virtuoso -> virtuosi, mafioso -> mafiosi). This can be seen in modern Italian grammer as well. ↩
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https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/gel- ↩