gelt

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɡɛlt/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛlt

Etymology 1

From Irish geilt.

Noun

gelt (plural gelts)

1. (rare) A lunatic.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     She […] like a ghastly Gelt whose wits are reaved, / Ran forth in hast with hideous outcry […]

Etymology 2

Variation of gilt.

Noun

gelt (plural gelts)

1. (obsolete) Gilding; gilt.

Etymology 3

See geld.

Verb

gelt

1. simple past and past participle of geld

Noun

gelt (plural gelts)

1. A gelding.
   • 1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. , 2nd edition, London: J H for H Mortlock , and J Robinson , published 1708, →OCLC:

     spay'd Gelts

Etymology 4

In the basic sense of "money", attested since the early 16th century, initially from (an Early New High German continuation of) Middle High German gelt (modern German Geld), from Old High German gelt (“payment, money”), or in some cases from (an Early Modern Dutch continuation of) Middle Dutch gelt. Later, and in the Jewish-related senses, from Yiddish געלט (gelt). The German, Dutch and Yiddish words are all from Proto-Germanic *geldą (“reward, gift, money”). Doublet of native words geld and yield.

Noun

gelt (usually uncountable, plural gelts)

1. (originally UK, especially thieves' cant and Polari, later Judaism and general slang) Money.
   • c. 1529, John Skelton, The Tunning of Elynour Rummyng, section 610:

     That nothynge had / There of theyr awne / Neyther gelt nor pawne.

   • 1591 (1685), Henry Wotton, in Reliquiae Wottonianae, 616:

     It amounts to not above 12000 Fr. Rhenish, yearly, in bare gelt.

   • c. 1698, B. E., A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew:

     The is no Gelt to be got.

   • 1816, Egbert Benson, in a memoir read before the New York Historical Society , quoted in History of the School of the Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church (1883), page 22:

     I saw him at the house of my parents; I in my earliest youth, he approaching to fourscore. He was on his way to collect the Dominie's gelt; for the Dutch always took care the stipend to the minister should be competent, that so he never might be straitened 'to desire a gift.'

   • 1852, Walter Scott, A Legend of Montrose And, The Black Dwarf:

     "And yet," said Captain Dalgetty, "my second and greatest difficulty remains behind; for, although I hold it a mean and sordid thing for a soldado to have nothing in his mouth but pay and gelt, like the base cullions, the German lanz-knechts, whom I mentioned before; […] yet, ex contrario, a soldier's pay being the counterpart of his engagement of service, it becomes a wise and considerate cavalier to consider what remuneration he is to receive for his service, […]

   • 1948, William Burroughs, letter, 5 Jun 1948:

     Have bought some farm land in Rio Grande Valley which should bring in a sizeable bundle of gelts come cotton picking time.

   • 1969, Robert L. Vann, The Competitor, volumes 2-3, page 135:

     The miser, a-seeking lost gelt, / The doughboy, awaiting the battle, / May possibly know how I felt / While the long years dragged by as the dealer / As slow as the slowest of dubs, / Stuck out the last helping of tickets / 'Till I lifted—the Bullet of Clubs!

2. Tribute; tax.
   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The History of Waltham Abbey:

     All these the king granted unto them […] free from all gelts [guilds] and payments, in a most full and ample manner.

3. (Judaism) Money, especially that given as a gift on Hanukkah or used in games of dreidel.
4. (Judaism) Chocolate candy in the shape of coins, usually wrapped in metallic foil, usually eaten on Hanukkah and often used for games of dreidel.

Derived terms

• (thieves' cant): rum-gelt (“new money”), smear-gelt (“bribe”)

References

Icelandic

Etymology

Back-formation from gelta (“to bark”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /cɛl̥t/
• Rhymes: -ɛl̥t

Noun

gelt n (genitive singular gelts, no plural)

1. barking

   Synonyms: gjamm, gá

Declension