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

[zotz]

Actually, I was right, in that that's one of five meanings the OED has for gelt.

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

My answer comes from both Danish/Scandawegian/Anglo-Saxon context and Yiddish/Hebrew. No idea if there's an actual modern(ish) English context for it.

Now I'll have a look at other people's answers.

Memories Jangled

[marjory.livejournal.com]

This is oddly illuminating for me (the meaning of gelt=crazy) as my grandparents (Scottish)used an awful lot of words in daily speech which only subsequent education demonstrated to me were not in standard English usage. One of these was 'Geit/gyte', which meant crazy/mad/funny as in '... the dog's gone geit...'.

Blimey! You live and learn...

[marjory.livejournal.com]

There's also the German word 'geil', which means:

1) great smashing super etc. to a superlative extent, beyond belief
2) lustful, horny etc. (geilhaft=lustful)

Gotta love those adjectives/adverbs!