Gel

How to spell gel

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce gel

What does gel mean?

1. nounA thick, jelly-like substance, often used for hair, washing or in chemistry.
2. verbTo set or thicken into a jelly-like consistency.
3. verbTo come together successfully as a group or to start working well.

Gel in a sentence

• noun

  He smoothed a little hair gel through his fringe before the meeting.

• verb

  Leave the dessert in the fridge so the mixture can gel overnight.

• verb

  The new players took a few weeks to gel as a team.

• noun

  The pharmacist recommended a cooling gel for the burn.

• verb

  The stock will slowly gel as it cools.

• verb

  Her ideas finally began to gel into a clear plan.

Where does gel come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Gel is a short, modern coinage carved straight out of the longer word gelatin. Gelatin itself traces back to the Latin gelare, meaning 'to freeze' or 'to congeal', and its past participle gelatus, so the underlying idea is a liquid that has stiffened into a wobbly, set mass. The clipped form gel was introduced around 1899 by the Scottish chemist Thomas Graham, who needed a tidy scientific term for a semi-solid colloidal substance. From the laboratory it spread into everyday life, attaching itself to hair gel, shower gel and similar products during the twentieth century. The same Latin root for freezing also gives us 'congeal' and 'gelid', and the soft 'j' sound at the start explains why some writers, especially in America, spell it 'jell' instead.

How the word is built

• gel (clipped from gelatin, from Latin gelare: to freeze, congeal)