1857 ‘G. Eliot’ Janet's Repentance viii, in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Aug. 201/2 Little gells must be seen and not heard.

1876 W. Besant & J. Rice Golden Butterfly II. vii. 112 I see the gells snoopin' around, with their eyes as soft as velvet.

1936 I. Gershwin Fancy! Fancy! in Compl. Lyrics (1993) 247/3 But demmit, gel, I already have a mistress.

1976 D. Clement & I. La Frenais Another Stretch of Porridge 42 ‘What you'll be most glad to hear is that Eddie and me have split up.’.. Not before time, gel. That's a relief to us all.’

2006 Daily Tel. 23 Nov. 26/4 A gel who is a descendant not just of various ineffably grand Toynbees but also of Gilbert Murray and the Earls of Carlisle.

1899 W. B. Hardy in Jrnl. Physiol. 24 164 Graham's nomenclature is as follows: The fluid state, colloidal solution, is the ‘sol’, the solid state the ‘gel’. The fluid constituent is indicated by a prefix. Thus an aqueous solution of gelatine is a ‘hydrosol’, and on setting it becomes a ‘hydrogel’.

1904 W. C. D. Whetham Rec. Devel. Physical Sci. iv. 137 The mass will solidify under certain conditions to form a solid which may be called a gel.

1918 Nature 28 Mar. 66/1 A very minute amount of electrolyte added to a stable colloidal solution may bring about complete precipitation or flocculation of the sol, the sol separating out in a gelatinous form known as a gel.

1922 Encycl. Brit. XXX. 591/1 On digestion with water the cellular tissue is transformed into a series of hydrated gel-products.

1926 Encycl. Brit. Suppl. I. 785 The Brownian movement affords a criterion of whether protoplasm is in the condition of a sol or a gel.

1930 Engineering 31 Jan. 142/3 Cement could be regarded as what in colloid chemistry is known as a rigid gel, which changes its physical properties..according to the variations of its moisture content.

1930 Nature 15 Mar. 432 Structure in very permeable collodion gel films and its significance in filtration problems.

1931 Oxf. Univ. Gaz. 17 June 693/2 The equilibria between (a) silica gel and water vapour, (b) silica gel and alcohol vapour, (c) iron oxide gel and alcohol.

1951 Williams & Alberty in Taylor & Glasstone Treat. Physical Chem. (ed. 3) II. v. 675 There is at present almost universal acceptance of the view that gels possess a ramifying, more or less coherent, framework that retains the liquid component and confers elasticity and rigidity upon the system as a whole.

1966 McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. (rev. ed.) VI. 93/1 Commonly, gels have a low solid content, for example, 2–5% for ferric oxide, and as little as 0·1% for coagulated blood.

1958 Amer. Hairdresser July 26/1 (advt.) Contains miracle deprovinyllol/DEP/styling gel.

1958 Amer. Hairdresser July 26/1 DEP..Not a spray…not a liquid. DEP is a silky gel.

1968 Trade Marks Jrnl. 11 Sept. 1518/1 Trugel..Preparations for the hair, all in gel form. Nicholas Products Limited, 225 Bath Road, Slough, Buckinghamshire; Manufacturers and Merchants.—2nd March, 1967.

1975 Chem. Week 26 Mar. 37/1 Beauty salon hair dressers and cosmeticians expect women to go in for fancier coiffures..which..will increase sales of chemical specialty products, such as permanent waves, hair-setting lotions and gels.

1984 Daily Mail 20 Oct. 12/2 Hair is expensively highlighted—blown and brushed back and worked over with gels.

1970 Nature 25 July 371/1 The mixture gelled at T₀ °C. After 5 h..the cell was warmed a few degrees to make the gelled oil transparent.

1933 M. H. Fischer & M. O. Hooker Lyophilic Colloids i. ix. 159 These explanations..do nothing to make clear why the silicic acid so frequently gels before being precipitated, or the relationship of the gelling process to the precipitation.