When I argue I see shapes

[venta]

I'm curious. About words again.
Today's word on the Calendar is gelt.
I'm not going to tell you what it means, I want you to answer or guess. maviscruet is banned from entering, because he's got his own Calendar to tell him the answer ;)

[Poll #407297]

Yesterday's word was ullapse, meaning "an explanation when anything goes wrong". As Felix points out, next time you're explaining why something's gone wrong, you can be safe in the knowledge that it's not just an excuse, it's an ullapse. Disappointingly, he also tells me it isn't in the OED, though :(

According to the Calendar, gelt is "a lunatic; adopted from the Irish geilt, a mad or frenzied person".

I was familiar with it as a slang term for money, but was unsure whether this was just a few people borrowing freely from German. I believe Lovejoy (in the Jonathon Gash novels, which are very much superior to the TV series) uses it a lot to mean money.

The OED, he say (in summary):
1. noun, rare. A lunatic.
2. Money; in early use often with reference to the pay of a (German)
army; now only slang.
3. Gelded, castrated. lit. and fig.
4.obs. form of GELD n., GUILT.
5. var. GILT, young sow.

I think it sounds like it ought to be an insult. "Bring that back here, you shameless thieving gelt!"

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, bear in mind that my Calendar is notionally "forgotten English", so it doesn't need to be very modern.

Depends how ish your ish was, really :)
For reference, the citation for gelt that the Calendar gives is a dictionary published in 1901.

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

Well, I appear to have the same context as most other people answering.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, quite a lot of the words on the Calendar haven't been forgotten by me. Up til now I've been putting this down to the the Calendar being American, and them having forgotten different words from us.

In this case, however, it's fair because the forgotten instance of the word doesn't mean what you think it means :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Patience, dear child. Give people a chance to guess first!