[quote author=granthutchison link=board=what;num=1040147072;start=0#2 date=12/17/02 at 15:14:23]Gelid is a handy word expressing extreme cold.
That works for my refrigerator comparison too:
[Latin gelidus, from gel, frost; see gel- in Indo-European roots.]]
and refrigerators are kept above the frost-ing temperatures.
It’s nice too- it sounds like chilly, so indiscriminate listeners won’t pounce at my using an unfamiliar term.
Hebrew for ice cream is glidah. But I don’t know the etymology.
Hebrew glidah, ice cream, is a new coinage, taken from Arabic jalid, ice.
The noun geled (hard ‘g’), meaning ‘skin, hide,’ appears once in the Hebrew Bible. A verb meaning ‘to freeze, congeal, jell,’ originally meaning ‘to cover with skin,’ likely grew out of the noun.
The Latin root - or a Greek cognate - may have influenced the development of the Semitic words.
