jelly
/ˈdʒɛli
/noun (plural jellies)
1 [mass noun] chiefly British A fruit-flavoured dessert made by warming and then cooling a liquid containing gelatin or a similar setting agent in a mould or dish so that it sets into a semi-solid, somewhat elastic mass: [as modifier]: a jelly mould...
- They made apple jelly with the apples from the orchard.
- Tart lemon jelly and crumbly crumbles went very well together, I thought.
- Pour the custard off and just eat the jelly.
1.1A substance with a jelly-like consistency made with fruit or other ingredients as a condiment: roast pheasant with redcurrant jelly...
- It came with a red pepper cassonade, crab ice cream and a sliver of passion fruit jelly.
- For example, the process of creating jelly or jam from fruit was similar to pickling.
- In this country port was as essential as redcurrant jelly, the two being combined in Francatelli's delicious sauce for venison.
1.2A savoury preparation with a jelly-like consistency made by boiling meat and bones.There's hardly a bit of a pig you can't eat, from the head boiled up in a stewy soup to the trotters with their savoury jelly and morsels of meat....
- It tasted like eating a hunk of quivering meat jelly.
- Slow cooked, the sinew that makes meat tough becomes jelly.
1.3Any jelly-like substance: petroleum jelly...
- HIV positive women can use diaphragms and cervical caps for birth control, with spermicidal cream or jelly.
- After peeling off outer skin, they polish it with castor oil, cactus jelly, curd, ghee and turmeric powder to make it smooth and slippery.
- Spermicide comes as a foam, jelly, or cream, and kills sperm.
2A small sweet made with gelatin: a box of fruit jellies...
- The Blackburn-based company has bought the soft fruit jellies business of Penguin Confectionery in a £428,000 deal.
- The jelly is contained in a dome-shaped plastic cup with a peel off foil lid.
- It is entirely possible that the jelly sweet stuck to his finger while he wet his finger to shine the ball.
2.1British informal A tablet of the drug Temazepam.Junkies die by injecting jellies into a vein, and they take it regularly as a come down from ecstasy or heroin....
- There, it was speed and ecstasy, followed by Valium and jellies to come down.
3 US term for jam2.
4British informal Gelignite.He later combined nitroglycerine with gun cotton to create a clear jelly, patented in 1867 as Blasting Gelatin....
- But another reason for the raid was to test the use of Napon fire bombs containing a gasoline-based jelly.
5 (jellies) Jelly shoes.
verb (jellies, jellying, jellied) [with object] (usually as adjective jellied)
Set (food) as or in a jelly: jellied cranberry sauce jellied eels...
- We make great jellied salads, and we're okay with calling them ‘salads’ even though there isn't one lick of lettuce in them.
- Preserves are made of small, whole fruits or uniform-size pieces of fruits in a clear thick, slightly jellied syrup.
- I started to sprinkle the pudding with some jellied candies, and happily hummed a song as I went about doing it.
Derivatives
jellification
jellify
- And two of the individual tales, though hardly jellifying, are sufficiently well crafted to be memorably eerie.
- This year, it seems, Adrià has become obsessed with jellifying ingredients, and with the sensuality of food.
- Then dribble over a little warmed thick stock or aspic which will cool and jellify.
jelly-like
- Since the external appearance was clear, viscous, and jelly-like, this can be attributed to the presence of a cubic phase.
- Gradually, the layer of sand at the bottom began to disappear, and the water became a thick, jelly-like substance.
- Some type of unidentified green liquid is added to the mix, turning the liquid tofu into a jelly-like substance after several minutes.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French gelee 'frost, jelly', from Latin gelata 'frozen', from gelare 'freeze', from gelu 'frost'.
In the Middle Ages jelly was a savoury dish of meat or fish set in a mould of aspic. The first references to fruit-flavoured jellies are not found until the late 18th century. The word comes ultimately from the Latin word gelare ‘to freeze’. See also cold