Etymology: Cognate with Old Saxon gikele , also (unless this shows an Old High German form) ihilla (Middle Low German jȫkel , jȫkele , jukel ), Old Icelandic jǫkull icicle, ice, glacier (Icelandic jökull glacier, jokul: see jokul n.), Norwegian (Bokmål) jøkel , (Nynorsk) jøkul , Norwegian regional jokel , jukul , jakel icicle, glacier, Old Swedish ikil icicle, early modern Danish egle , egel icicle (compare Old Danish huseghel icicle hanging from a house roof; Danish regional egel , (Bornholm) iggel ), also (in sense ‘glacier’ and related meanings; < Icelandic or Norwegian) Swedish jökel , early modern Danish jukel , iorkel (Danish jøkel ), reflecting a diminutive formation (compare -le suffix 1) < the Germanic base of Old Icelandic jaki piece of ice, ice floe < the same Indo-European base as Early Irish aig ice, Hittite eka- ice.The word apparently showed variation in Germanic in the vowel of the suffix and in gender and inflectional class. For detailed documentation and discussion, especially of the forms found in Middle Low German and in modern Low German varieties (which present particular difficulties), see E. Rooth Zu den Bezeichnungen für ‘Eiszapfen’ in den germanischen Sprachen (1961). In Old English, the word is attested as a strong noun of uncertain (probably masculine) gender (gicel ) and as a weak feminine (early Old English gecile , gecele ), perhaps also as a weak masculine (gicela ; although this is disputed: see discussion of quot. OE² below); these continue different forms of an original formation with diminutive suffix (compare -le suffix 1). There are two attested Old English stem forms: late West Saxon gicel- (gycel- ) and early Mercian gecil- (gecel- ). Their history is uncertain and disputed. At least three explanations are possible. If they show the same ablaut grade (e -grade) of the base as Old Icelandic jǫkull (which shows the reflex of a stem vowel e , with breaking before the u of the suffix), then the difference in stem vowel between West Saxon and Mercian could be explained as due to different ablaut grades of the diminutive suffix: gicel- would reflect Germanic raising of e to i before a following i in the suffix, while Mercian gecil- would reflect a form with u in the suffix (as in Old Icelandic), with later suffix substitution. Alternatively, it would be possible to argue that West Saxon gicel- does not reflect Germanic raising of e before i , but rather arises through palatal diphthongization of e . This would imply that late West Saxon gicel- , gycel- derives from early West Saxon *giecel- , which merely happens not to be attested. A further possibility is that the Old English stem forms reflect a different ablaut grade (o -grade) of the base (apparently not paralleled among the other Germanic languages), in which case both the West Saxon and Mercian forms could show different reflexes of early Old English æ with i-mutation caused by the suffix (in West Saxon with intervening palatal diphthongization of æ to ea , again implying an unattested early West Saxon form *giecel- , in this instance the result of i-mutation). Palatalization and assibilation would be expected in the Old English stem form gicel if the first syllable showed early Old English i , and reflexes of this do seem to be attested very occasionally: compare Middle English ychele and perhaps also isechel at icicle n. β. forms. In later Middle English, the initial semivowel was phonologically lost before i (as in ikyl ); compare itch v.¹ The (rare and late) β. forms probably reflect influence from forms in another Germanic language: compare discussion of similar forms at icicle n. In quot. OE², the interpretation of the word in the phrase se þrece gicela (also found as se þrece gycela in an excerpt from the poem in an Old English homily) is disputed. The word has been interpreted either as a nominative singular modified by a genitive singular (lit. ‘the icicle of violence’) or a genitive plural modifying a noun in the nominative singular (lit. ‘the violence of icicles’); the latter is the interpretation favoured by the most recent editor of the poem ( G. D. Caie Old Eng. Poem ‘Judgement Day II’ (2000)); in either case the sense appears to be ‘severe frost’ (compare Latin (plural) frigora algida in the source). The first interpretation requires gicela to represent an otherwise unattested weak masculine; the second requires þrece to represent an otherwise unattested (masculine) by-form of Old English (feminine) þracu or (neuter) þræc (usually as prefixed geþræc).

Etymology: Representing a child's pronunciation of little adj.