geld
/ɡɛld/ noun, verb
Forms gelds gelding gelded gelt
- noun (Northern England) A payment.
- noun (historical) In particular, (money paid as) a medieval form of land tax.
- verb (historical) To tax geld.
- verb (transitive) To castrate a male (usually an animal).
- verb (transitive, figurative) To suppress or severely reduce sexual desire or libido.
- verb (transitive, figurative) To deprive of anything essential; to weaken.
- noun A female animal, such as a ewe or cow, that is not pregnant.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English geld (and reinforced by Medieval Latin geldum), both from Old English ġeld, ġield (“payment, tribute”) (which regularly yield yield), from Proto-West Germanic *geld, from Proto-Germanic *geldą (“reward, gift, money”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeldʰ- (“to pay”). Probably reinforced by gelt (which see), see Norwegian Bokmål gjeld (“debt”), Danish gæld (“debt”) (whence apparently the otherwise irregular hard g in Middle English geld and perhaps also in Medieval Latin geldum, as opposed to the regular continuation yield from Old English). Geld is also written gelt or gild, and as such found in wergild, Danegeld, etc. Doublet of yield.
Cognate with North Frisian jild (“money”), Saterland Frisian Jield, Jäild (“money”), Dutch geld (“money”), German Geld (“money”), Old Norse gjald (“payment”), Gothic 𐌲𐌹𐌻𐌳 (gild, “tribute”). Also related to English yield.
From Middle English gelden, from Old Norse gelda (“to geld, castrate”), from Proto-Germanic *galdijaną (“to castrate”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰel- (“to cut”).
Cognate with Old Norse geldr (“yielding no milk, dry”), German galt, gelt (“not giving milk, barren”), Gothic 𐌲𐌹𐌻𐌸𐌰 (gilþa, “sickle”). Compare the archaic German Gelze (“castrated swine”) and gelzen (“to castrate”), Danish galt (“castrated boar”) (from Old Norse gǫltr (“boar, hog”), cognate with English gilt and gilde (“to geld”). "gelding" derives from Old Norse geldingr.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Money; tribute; compensation; ransom.[Obs.]
- verb To castrate; to emasculate.
- verb To deprive of anything essential.
Etymology [AS. gild, gield, geld, tribute, payment, fr. gieldan to pay, render. See Yield.]
Etymology [Icel. gelda to castrate; akin to Dan. gilde, Sw. gälla, and cf. AS. gilte a young sow, OHG. galt dry, not giving milk, G. gelt, Goth. gilpa siclke.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “geld”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details