Revised as of
22 Nov 2022
A heterograph (a subset of homophone) pair, gel and jell both cause a group of people to come together as a team and function well, although jell is the preferred word choice.
A gel is formed through a gelling process using the action of jelling.
The differences are rather fine. As a noun, gel is a semi-solid substance while the verb gel means to form something into a gel.
While jell has a noun form, referring to jelly, it’s the verb jell that is predominant. It means that something achieves a consistency similar to jelly OR that something is growing firmer or is becoming set.
And since gel and jell are both alternative spellings for each other, whichever you use, be consistent in using it throughout your story.
Word Confusions . . .
. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.
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| Gel | Jell |
|---|---|
Heavy Hitter by Dennis van Zuijlekom is under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license, via Flickr. — A blue theatrical gel causes this color effect. |
Fire Cubes by Furryscaly is under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license, via VisualHunt. — These chunks of Jell-O appear to have jelled nicely. |
| Part of Grammar: | |
| Noun 1 and 2; Verb 2, intransitive & transitive Plural for the noun: gels Third person present verb: gels Alternate spelling for jell |
Noun; Verb, intransitive & transitive Plural for the noun: jells Third person present verb: jells Alternate spelling for gel |
| Jelly-like substance that takes a more solid form
Noun: [Mass noun] A jelly-like substance, especially one used in cosmetic or medicinal products 1
[Biochemistry] A semirigid polymer, as agarose, starch, cellulose acetate, or polyacrylamide, cast into slabs or cylinders for the electrophoretic separation of proteins and nucleic acids [Theater] Gelatin [British; informal] An upper-class or well-bred girl or young woman 2 Verb, intransitive:
[Of a project or idea] Take a definite form or begin to work well
Verb, transitive: |
To come together
Noun: [US] An informal word for jelly or gel Verb, intransitive: [Of a project or idea] Take a definite form or begin to work well
Verb, transitive: To cause to take shape
|
| Examples: | |
| Noun: I set him down on the counter and then grabbed my shave gel out of the medicine cabinet. Amy tilted up his face and soothed the cool gel onto his cheekbones with her fingertips. They can already produce moulded gel implants and are now looking for a hospital whose surgeons are unhappy with silicone implants. I also discovered that my nails will be ruined, as they have glued the extensions directly on to them, rather than onto a layer of gel. Color gels are used to color stage lighting as well as to provide color correction. The gel state is reversible to a sol state at higher temperatures. Gel electrophoresis is a method for separation and analysis of macromolecules (DNA, RNA, and proteins) and their fragments, based on their size and charge. I can’t imagine Lauren Bacall playing a debby young English gel, can you? Roaming gaggles of extremely ditsy young gels wriggle in and out of designer coffee bars. Verb, intransitive: The mixture gelled at 7 degrees Celsius. Everything seemed to gel for the magazine. During the tour they continued to gel as a band. Verb, transitive: An older staffer has a cute hairstyle, short, gelled, and in spikes. Where his hair had once been gelled into the perfect position, it was now hanging into his eyes. His hair had been gelled so that it was messy again, as though he’d just woken up. |
Noun: There’s jell, a.k.a., jelly, jam, and preserves. Jell is smooth without any chunks of fruit. Verb, intransitive: Chicken or fish stock will jell when chilled. He decided to do a different film that would jell at the box office. We went out there and tried to win, but we just didn’t jell. Verb, transitive: I always said it takes time to jell a team and know our formation. |
| Derivatives: | |
| Adjective: gelatinous, nongelling Adverb: gelatinously Noun: gelatin, gelatine, gelatinization, gelation, gelcap, gelcoat, gelignite Verb: degel, degelled, degelling, gelatinize, regel, regelled, regelling |
Adjective: half-jelled, unjelled |
| History of the Word: | |
|
Mid-18th century, as a back-formation from jelly, as a sweet, clear, semisolid, somewhat elastic spread or preserve made from fruit juice and sugar boiled to a thick consistency. |
C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!
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Resources for Gel versus Jell
Apple Dictionary.com
Oxford Dictionaries: gel
Pinterest Photo Credits:
Gummies on the March by martaposemuckel is under the Pixabay License, via Pixabay, were angled. Jelly Donuts by Janet Hudson is under the CC BY 2.0 license, via Flickr. Both images have had their backgrounds removed and shadows added.
