gelt
See also: gèlt
English
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ɡɛlt/
Audio (Southern England) (file)
- Rhymes: -ɛlt
Noun
gelt (plural gelts)
- (rare) A lunatic.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- She […] like a ghastly Gelt whose wits are reaved, / Ran forth in hast with hideous outcry […]
Etymology 2
Variation of gilt.
Etymology 3
See geld.
Noun
gelt (plural gelts)
- A gelding.
- 1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], 2nd edition, London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], published 1708, →OCLC:
- spay'd Gelts
Etymology 4
In the basic sense of "money", attested since the early 16th century,[1][2][3] initially from (an Early New High German continuation of) Middle High German gelt (modern German Geld), from Old High German gelt (“payment, money”),[1][2][3][4] or in some cases from (an Early Modern Dutch continuation of) Middle Dutch gelt.[1][3][4] Later, and in the Jewish-related senses, from Yiddish געלט (gelt).[1][3][4][5] The German, Dutch and Yiddish words are all from Proto-Germanic *geldą (“reward, gift, money”). Doublet of native words geld and yield.
Noun
gelt (usually uncountable, plural gelts)
- (originally UK, especially thieves' cant and Polari, later Judaism and general slang) Money.
- c. 1529, John Skelton, The Tunning of Elynour Rummyng, section 610:
- That nothynge had / There of theyr awne / Neyther gelt nor pawne.
- 1591 (1685), Henry Wotton, in Reliquiae Wottonianae, 616:
- It amounts to not above 12000 Fr. Rhenish, yearly, in bare gelt.
- c. 1698, B. E., A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew:
- The is no Gelt to be got.
- 1816, Egbert Benson, in a memoir read before the New York Historical Society [in 1816], quoted in History of the School of the Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church (1883), page 22:
- I saw him at the house of my parents; I in my earliest youth, he approaching to fourscore. He was on his way to collect the Dominie's gelt; for the Dutch always took care the stipend to the minister should be competent, that so he never might be straitened 'to desire a gift.'
- 1852, Walter Scott, A Legend of Montrose And, The Black Dwarf:
- "And yet," said Captain Dalgetty, "my second and greatest difficulty remains behind; for, although I hold it a mean and sordid thing for a soldado to have nothing in his mouth but pay and gelt, like the base cullions, the German lanz-knechts, whom I mentioned before; […] yet, ex contrario, a soldier's pay being the counterpart of his engagement of service, it becomes a wise and considerate cavalier to consider what remuneration he is to receive for his service, […]
- 1948, William Burroughs, letter, 5 Jun 1948:
- Have bought some farm land in Rio Grande Valley which should bring in a sizeable bundle of gelts come cotton picking time.
- 1969, Robert L. Vann, The Competitor, volumes 2-3, page 135:
- The miser, a-seeking lost gelt, / The doughboy, awaiting the battle, / May possibly know how I felt / While the long years dragged by as the dealer / As slow as the slowest of dubs, / Stuck out the last helping of tickets / 'Till I lifted—the Bullet of Clubs!
- Tribute; tax.
- 1655, Thomas Fuller, The History of Waltham Abbey:
- All these the king granted unto them […] free from all gelts [guilds] and payments, in a most full and ample manner.
- (Judaism) Money, especially that given as a gift on Hanukkah or used in games of dreidel.
- (Judaism) Chocolate candy in the shape of coins, usually wrapped in metallic foil, usually eaten on Hanukkah and often used for games of dreidel.
Derived terms
- (thieves' cant): rum-gelt (“new money”), smear-gelt (“bribe”)
References
- “gelt”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
- “gelt”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
- Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “gelt”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
- “gelt”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- “gelt”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
Icelandic
Etymology
Back-formation from gelta (“to bark”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /cɛl̥t/
- Rhymes: -ɛl̥t
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